Not Heroes
by sephacles
Summary: In which Hermione goes through life with her twin brother and everyone watches the spectacle in fascinated horror. Pureblood AU featuring foreign wizards and things blowing up. And also world domination, because Slytherins.
1. 1

_**1**_

In her heart of hearts, Hermione knew she had it easier than most. It was just hard to remember was woken by the thin light sliding through a gap in the curtains. The clock read eight, which confused her at first. Monday mornings were for getting dressed and heading out. Guzzling strawberry milk, catching up with her classmates and sitting in maths class.

She liked strawberry milk, her classmates and maths.

She didn't like yet another holiday week stretching ahead, empty days, hours and hours waiting to be filled with nothing but staying home because it was the _bloody summer holiday._

Hermione didn't want to get up just yet—because what was there to get up for?—but still, she swung her feet over the side of the couch, folded her blanket, fluffed the cushions, and padded along to the bathroom. After going to the loo, she washed her hands, splashed water on her face and closed the door quietly behind her. Silence was essential. The last thing she wanted was to wake her grandmother—asleep was when the woman was the most Hermione was sure the coast was clear, she tiptoed into the kitchenette, found an open packet of cream crackers and stuffed several into her mouth. She washed them down with a glass of milk and peered into the refrigerator. A pack of sliced roast turkey caught her eye. After warring with herself for a full minute, she gobbled two slices, taking care to put the pack back in its exact place.

The sink was full of used tea bags, dirty mugs, cutlery and plates. It might as well sport a sign reading ' _Rosalind Granger was here_ '. Hermione dragged the step stool over and climbed up. Better to get through morning chores while nobody was here to glare daggers at her back. Sleeves rolled up to the elbows, she filled a bowl with washing liquid and hot water, and worked like a finely honed machine. Plate. Into the soapy water. Good scrub. Rinse under running , the sun was shining. She cracked the window open to let in the fresh morning air. Sounds of the neighbourhood preparing for a new day floated in. Somewhere down the street a lawn was being mowed. Probably Mr Wilson. He was a retired clerk who took religious care of his yard.

A dog barked two or three houses over. Then came the sounds of a mother yelling for her kid. Jason? Jamie? Maybe Jessica, the McCarthys' five-year-old daughter. She was a whiz on rollerblades, a pity for whoever had to run after her. Her mum and dad never seemed to mind, though.

Hermione turned a blue-and-white china plate and rhythmically washed the back.

When she'd moved in with her grandmother after her parents' car crash, she'd been one of the few kids living there. Since then the neighbourhood had grown and so had the families. There must be four toddlers on this block alone. Three of the boys in her class lived just two blocks over. Larry, Jay, and Dub—Adam, but everyone called him Dub since he was from Dublin. There were a number of girls as well, though most of them were older. Hermione had always felt that was a pity. It was so easy for boys to find someone to play with, while she'd have to be driven to someone's house. That took planning. That took having a parent to serve as chauffeur. That took being allowed to go beyond the garden wonder she didn't have any friends.

On the positive side, the library was only ten minutes away on foot. On the negative side, any attempt to go would be met with disapproval, because ' _Young girls shouldn't be out on their own_ ' and ' _People will talk!_ '.

Hermione thought people had better things to do than gossip about ten-year-olds but she had learned long ago not to contradict her grandmother. To voice any kind of opinion would be asking for trouble. She managed to go out on her own, anyway. It was just a matter of proper grandmother-management. For instance, Rosalind's afternoon naps provided the perfect opportunity to rush to the library and check out some books. And later, when she turned in for the night, Hermione would go on walks around the neighbourhood. She'd hang out with Larry and his mates. They'd show her stunts like riding bikes no-handed or wrestling moves. Sometimes Mrs Kane from next-door would give her cookies, she joked that Hermione had a lot of catching up to do in the cookie department.

An evening walk could make any bad day better. It was entertaining, passing through the neighbourhood where everyone was friendly and smiley and happy.

The sound of the lawn mower stopped. A sharp bang as Mr Wilson removed the clippings bag. He was probably dumping the grass on his flower beds. Working the soil vigorously with his wrinkled, tanned hands. Hermione had seen him do it a hundred times. She set the last plate in the drying rack, and attacked the kitchen floor, all the while thinking, _This must be what house arrest feels like_. Or being a fish, listening underwater to people living up above.

One hour later, the countertops sparkled, the floor was freshly mopped, the stove, microwave and windows were clean. Now it was ten in the morning and Hermione didn't know what to do.

She plopped down on the couch and stared at the white doily on the coffee table. Eyed it steadily until it rose off, hovered above the table, twirled in the air.

As far as entertainment went, lace doily was as good as the living-room got.

Hermione didn't really understand what she was doing, or why she could do it, but her touch was instinctive, familiar. She'd been six when she'd realized that others couldn't do what she did. From what she'd read, it was like pure sleight-of-hand skill or something. She wasn't sure exactly. She'd been thinking about showing it to a teacher, but then again. . .She wasn't sure she really wanted to find out.

What if it wasn't _natural?_

She was already enough of an outcast without becoming the school's official mutant, thank you very much. What, with her orphan status, top grades, and unprettiness, she couldn't have been more of a target if someone had painted her Day-Glo orange and tattooed a dartboard on her back. Of course, that didn't mean she went around handing out arrows for people to take their best shot. She gave back as good as she got. Fought back those trying to bully her with kicks and bites and scratches and, when someone said something slick about her parents, she'd been known to throw the first punch. Her adoptive parents were dead, her real parents too, and they were all completely off-limits to talk about. Though some people didn't understand that, such as Emily Taylor. She was one of those rebellious girls who skipped class and talked back to teachers and bullied others. Whenever Hermione raised her hand to give the—correct—answer in class, Emily rolled her eyes or made a snide comment; every time Hermione went to blackboard to answer—correctly—an algebra problem, Emily would try to trip her; and thrice now the bigger girl'd jostled her in gym.

Emily'd always been nasty, but she reached the culmination of her nastiness a few months ago. It was a free study period and Hermione had been reading while her classmates had been chatting and catching up on homework, Emily's voice louder than anyone else's. All the class could hear her going on and on about how her mum'd thrown a fit because she'd caught her putting make-up on.

"Not even proper make-up, just lipgloss, you know," Emily said breezily. "But my bitch mum goes bananas, right, acts like I'm this total slag. And when I told her that _she_ wears make-up she got shirty like parents do as soon as you point out how stupid and useless they are."

Normally, Hermione ignored the girls in her class, but she was getting annoyed at what she was hearing. And apparently it showed on her face because Emily went, "What're you staring for, Granger?"

"Well, you shouldn't call your mum bad names."

"And you shouldn't wear your dad's ugly trousers or pee yourself with excitement every time you raise your hand in class. But I don't tell you anything, do I?"

The whole class seemed to burst into laughter. Hermione hadn't noticed people were actually listening. "Watch your mouth," she snapped, reddening. "Don't talk about my dad, Taylor."

"Screw you and screw your loser dad," Emily said nastily. "You're nothing but an irritating, brown-nosing know-it-all, Granger. No one's talked to you so maybe you should just shut your ugly mouth and go back to your coloured book."

Hermione didn't know what came over her, but the next thing she knew, she'd socked Emily in the mouth. It was satisfying, but stupid, because after the shock Emily started hitting her back, and she hit bloody hard. They rolled on the floor for a while, until they were pulled apart and sent to the headteacher's office.

As they sat on the worn-out leather couches outside the head's study, Emily kept glaring and glaring until Hermione hissed, "You started it. You've got no business talking about my parents."

"What's so bloody special about your stupid parents?"

"They're _dead."_

A blank expression came over Emily's face, as if her bully instincts weren't fully capable of handling such information.

"And I don't need you to feel sorry for me!"

"Well, I can't help it, Granger. You're really pathetic. No one likes you, you're ugly, and you haven't got any parents."

Hermione pounded the coffee table irritably. That day she'd received her first detention, a blemish on her perfect record. But it turned out detention wasn't so bad. She did her homework until Emily said "God, you're such a loser" and hijacked her textbook for a magazine. They spent the hour defacing photographs of celebrities, adding moustaches, missing teeth, until it was an onslaught of scars and eye patches and bloodshot eyes and devil horns.

Emily Taylor wasn't so bad once you got past her bad attitude. Under other circumstances, Hermione thought grudgingly, they might have been friends.

The sound of a door banging open brought her out of her thoughts and made her bolt upright. She straightened out the crocheted doily on the table and put on a bright smile just as the door jerked open. "Good morning," she greeted.

Her grandmother flicked her a look then headed straight for the kitchenette, her footsteps creaking the wood floor. As usual, without answering or smiling or even nodding.

A familiar feeling rose, pushing up like a budding flower.

 _I wish she loved me._

Hermione squashed it down, then stamped on it for good measure.

"Bread or oatmeal?" Rosalind's voice came out muffled from the cupboard where her head had disappeared.

"Bread, please."

"Fruit?"

"Yes. Please."

She produced two slices of bread and an apple, handing them without removing her head from beneath the shelf.

"Can I have some butter?"

"You'll get fat."

"Just a little bit? Please?"

"Hrmph."

Hermione nibbled on thinly-buttered bread on the couch while listening to her grandmother go through her routine of preparing her breakfast. It was always scrambled eggs, oatmeal topped with yogurt and fruit, three bialys, a cup of tea. And soon came the whisking sound of eggs being beaten in a metal bowl, the clunk of a pan taken down from the hanging rack. The _click_ of the stove being turned on. The rustling of the kettle being filled up with water while the scrambled eggs fizzled and sputtered in the frying pan. Slowly the hissing of water boiling died down. Now Rosalind was scooping out oatmeal from box to bowl, pouring the hot water, stirring. A _click_ as she shut the stove off and slid the eggs onto a plate. Silverware clunk as she arranged her breakfast on a tray. The thud of her heels on the creaky wood floors. The _whoosh_ of the fridge door being swung open.

Then there was silence.

Hermione waited for the subtle rubberized squish-push of the door being shut. It didn't come.

Instead, "When did you wake up?"

"Eight, why?"

A pause. "Did you touch anything in there?"

"No. No, I didn't."

Rosalind slammed the refrigerator door shut. "There's food missing. The turkey. I don't like being lied to! You little—"

She broke off. Hermione watched her chest fill, a conscious inhale. Then the slow exhale as no doubt she counted to ten. Wondering yet again how to survive an unwanted granddaughter.

"Tell me, girl," she said at last. "How long have you lived here?"

"I'm sorry."

"That's not what I'm asking you."

"Five years, Grandma."

"In all that time, what's the only thing I've asked of you?"

"That I listen to you."

Rosalind smacked her palm on the countertop. "And?"

"That I clean the house."

 _"And?"_

"That I don't lie to you."

"I don't ask too much of you, do I?" Her voice was dangerously low. "You've lived here for a long time. You had no one, and I took you in. Nobody wanted you, not even your own parents. They threw you away like a bag of stinking rubbish, but _I_ kept you."

Hermione stared.

Her grandmother rubbed her temples. "You have to learn to respect other people's things."

"Yes. I'm sorry. I... I won't do it again. I promise."

"I should think not," Rosalind agreed. For one moment, Hermione actually thought she might get away with it, but then she added, "Now go get it."

Hermione stood and walked slowly to the bathroom. A broom hung from a hook by the door, alongside a squeegee mop and a long-handled dustpan. It was a good broom, with a gloss wood handle and a sturdy straw-sweeper end. Her fingers shook as she reached out for it.

In the living-room she put it in her grandmother's outstretched hand, stripped off her shirt then turned around to give her back. And tried to remind herself that she had it easier than most, even if it was hard to remember at times.

School had finally come.

Hermione sat with an open textbook and a bunch of notebooks sprawled across the table, in her pyjamas, listening to her grandmother cursing up a storm as she tried to find her shoes.

The summer had been unusually hot that year, with record-breaking temperatures in August. The heat put Rosalind Granger in bad moods. When she opened her mouth, nothing but complaints spewed out. Everything, according to her, was wrong. Hermione was careless, she left a sponge on the table, how dared she? She slouched when she walked, she'd become a hunchback if she wasn't careful. She was greedy, stuffing herself with porridge at dinner. She was thin and scrawny. Why couldn't she be more like Mrs Roberts's granddaughter? Next to her she looked like a rat, Rosalind sighed, an ugly, skinny rat with bushy hair.

It was a trying time. Hermione did a good job of avoiding trouble—especially after her rookie mistake with the ham. She'd had such a nasty whupping the bruises hadn't totally faded yet, but then again legs and back always took the longest to heal.

Staying out of the way was easier now that school had started. The transition from primary to secondary school had gone significantly better than expected. The secondary school was massive and they'd served Sunny Delight drinks and flapjacks at break the first day. Hermione's uniform—brown skirt, white shirt, maroon sweatshirt—was secondhand, but nicer than her usual clothes. Emily Taylor had told her that older kids flushed the ugliest Year Sevens' heads down the bog, but it had been two weeks and Hermione's head remained un-flushed. Emily seemed dead upset about this. All in all, classes had been great.

A blast of fresh air rushed in as the front-door opened. "Girl! Come here!"

Hermione dragged her feet to the hallway where Rosalind waited, wearing a beige knitted jumper and an irritated expression. "Clean the kitchen while I'm gone. I'll be back tonight, but you know how it goes. Don't leave the house, don't touch the television, and don't steal food from the fridge or else. . .Now lock the door, bolt it and don't let anybody in."

Hermione stood at the window and watched her grandmother scuttle in the street and disappear out of sight. Then she put her homework away, turned on the television and emptied her secret stash of food. She fully intended to slob about watching telly all day and committing forbidden acts. Who would tell on her? The furniture? She started with some Saturday morning cartoons, munching her way through a packet of Jaffa Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were dead wicked, though they had nothing on the moves the neighbourhood boys would pull on you. Just last year Larry had grabbed her in a wrestling move, she'd flown and hit a fence so hard an old nail ripped her thigh. Larry's mum had said she should go to the hospital for stitches and a tetanus shot. Rosalind hadn't even noticed the gash.

She wasn't one of those fussy grandmothers—actually she would rather not be a grandmother. She was ashamed of Hermione, embarrassed to have her in the family, and, when drunk, occasionally wished her dead.

"You should have died in that accident," she'd sob, clutching at her bottle of gin. "Christ, you should have."

These open exchanges of family sentiment always left Hermione feeling warm and fuzzy all over. _At least she's honest_ , she thought, unfazed, as she licked chocolate off her fingers. Honest and volatile and unhappy with insults spewing out of her like missiles, that was Rosalind Granger all right. But Hermione thought she understood why; her grandmother hated her for being alive while her son was dead—and for being adopted. Must not forget that one.

Hermione wouldn't care about being adopted if it wasn't for her grandma reminding her at every turn. She couldn't even remember a time when she didn't know she was adopted. She didn't remember specifically being told, it was as though she'd always known, just as she'd always known that her dad and mum were dentists who worked in the same company and died in a car crash on the way home from that Company Christmas.

While _they_ spurred murky and disjointed images in her mind, Hermione knew nothing about her birthparents—except that they didn't want her. They had abandoned her in a street when she was a baby, without even a note. That was not to say she didn't think about them from time to time. Or wonder who they were. Or if they were even alive. She wanted answers, names, faces. She didn't have that. She had a hundred questions and an ancient blue-and-silver locket.

Hermione leaned back on the couch, put her feet on the table—just for the thrill of breaking yet another rule—and pulled her locket out from under her shirt. It'd been round her neck when she was found in the street. It was, for lack of a better word, a weird thing. Once, Hermione, angry at her grandmother for nagging at her and at her mum and dad for being dead and then at her birth parents for throwing her away, had taken the locket and flushed it down the toilet. The next morning, however, she had got up to find the locket under her pillow. That had spooked her so bad she never tried getting rid of it again. To this day she wondered if she hadn't imagined the whole thing.

She tilted it slightly so the blue stone caught the morning light and glimmered silvery, and, not for the first time, noticed it was beautiful. She didn't understand why her birthparents would give it to her. What did it mean? _'Farewell'_? Or maybe her grandmother was right, maybe it meant _'We can't keep you because you're a bag of stinking rubbish, but here's a necklace. No hard feelings'._

Her birthparents might be the most selfish people in the world. Hermione knew that, and liked to believe that she hated them, but in truth whenever she thought of them she just had that indescribable emotion. A violent flash of loneliness, making her feel all hollow inside. Empty, in some horribly deep way, as if someone had taken an ice-cream scoop and carved her out. A question bubbled forth, one she'd lost count how many times she'd asked herself.

 _Is something wrong with me?_

Excellent. Another morning, same old depressing rubbish. Hermione focused back on the television screen and engrossed herself in cartoons. Watching Inspector Gadget defeat evil made her realize that life could be worse. For example, she could have had to stop her archenemy from stealing the Queen's jewelled crown.

" _You must get the Crown Jewels_ ," Dr Claw lisped on screen. " _I desired them since I was a child_."

His acolyte was mystified. " _You were a child, Boss?_ "

Hermione was slurping down a Capri Sun and wondering why Inspector Gadgets' niece Penny even wasted her time telling adults stuff—they never believed her and were too useless to help—when someone knocked on the front door. Loudly. She figured it was just some kids being idiots and didn't even think of answering it.

But then it went on.

What, could she not even watch her Saturday morning cartoons in peace? Was nothing sacred anymore?

 _Knock. Knock. Knock._

"Piss off," Hermione muttered when the noise had the audacity to repeat itself. God, what if it was one of her grandmother's friends? She didn't want to talk to these idiots. Last time she met Mrs Roberts in the street she spoke and spoke about herself and her stupid cats for what seemed like three whole goddamned hours.

 _KNOCK. KNOCK. KNO—_

"I'M COMING!"

Hermione huffed and stomped out, muttering things like _bloody hell_ and _can't catch a breath, can we_ and _if it's Mrs Roberts there'll be a bloody death in this neighbourhood_ all the way to the front-door.

Having been Hogwarts School's deputy headmistress for quite some time now, Minerva McGonagall was one of the few individuals who did the customary house-visit and delivered acceptance letters to Muggle families.

Thusly, she wasn't exactly a stranger to certain things. Muggles categorically refusing magic's existence. Muggles reading the supply list and going "Parchment? Quills? This isn't the Middle Ages!". Muggles and their overexcited children getting lost in Diagon Alley. Muggleborn children smuggling in non-magical pets, puppies, turtles and guinea pigs—not to mention all those calculators Argus Filch had confiscated over the years. Muggleborn children all decked out in neon-flashy scuba gear ready to do some diving in the black lake because they wanted to meet the mermaids. Muggleborn children asking her if it was possible to turn a pumpkin into a carriage with the spell "bibbidi-bobbidi-boo". Muggleborn children enchanting electric objects to work in the castle without considering their capacity to get sentient over time—students still told horror stories in hushed whispers about the Attacking Toaster.

Muggleborn children flat-out refusing to open the door wasn't something Minerva McGonagall had ever experienced before.

She pursed her mouth into a tight line and glanced at the side to make sure she had the right address. Number One, a redbrick terrace house, squashed between two other terrace houses, with a tiny patch of front garden.

It checked out, so she knocked again, firmly, steadily, and heard the sounds of someone shuffling from the other side of the door. Instead of the door opening, she listened to the metal covering scrape back from an ancient peephole. A childish, high-pitched voice came from inside. "If you're selling, we're not interested."

Minerva took it all in stride. "I'm not selling anything," she answered briskly. Did she look like a saleswoman? "Miss Granger, I suppose. I have a few questions for your—"

"How the hell do you know me?"

"My name is Minerva McGonagall." She couldn't repress the disapproving tone in her voice. "I am a professor, at a boarding school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at this school—your new school, if you would like to come. I need to talk to your parents—"

A muffled huff cut her off.

"I want you to know," Hermione Granger said from the other side of the door, "I can smell a scam a mile away."

Minerva was finding it it difficult to negotiate with a solid wood door, but she did her best. "Well, I never! I've come all the way to your home, because you have qualities we are looking for. Really, now, Miss Granger, what would I get out of it? I'm sure your parents would want to know about it. Given that, do you think I can come in?"

That reply earned her silence, as if the girl were seriously thinking it over.

"Look, lady, I don't know you. You could be one of those serial-killers we hear about all the time on the eight o'clock news."

Oh, for Merlin's sake. "Believe me, I have no intention of killing anyone, especially not someone like you. Let me in and I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Now open the door, will you?"

More silence. Some shuffling noises, as if the girl was dragging her feet. Finally, three sharp metal thunks as steel bolt locks drew back. The rasp of a chain being temperamentally released. A key turning twice. Seemed the Grangers took their home security seriously.

The door was flung open and a tiny brown-haired girl stood there, arms crossed, mouth set. "You can come in. But don't try anything, all right? I'm pretty sure I can bring down some skinny old lady if need be."

With a slight effort, Minerva refrained from answering. She stepped gingerly into the house as Hermione Granger went back to work on the bolt lock and chain.

Inside, a small, cramped corridor led to a small, cramped bedroom with the door partly opened. Straight ahead, the family room was half kitchenette, boasting a faded green tartan couch, three wooden chairs and a coffee table covered in lace doilies. Walls were painted a drab pumpkin-orange, and the two windows were trimmed out with scalloped shades made from a sunflower-covered fabric. The TV was on, blaring away on top of a cheap microwave stand. Hermione took a second to cross the space and snap it off. Then she asked if she'd like some tea or coffee.

"Tea, thank you."

Minerva sat on the couch while the girl shuffled off to a strictly utilitarian kitchenette with plain white cupboards and cheap orange countertops. The air held odours of bleach and medication mingled with the scents of frying oil and spice.

The Grangers have sickle-pinching ways, she concluded. Money was tight. Or perhaps the household was badly managed. Having run an entire school all too often without enough gold, she recognized the signs of economies being practiced. But the hardships that warlocks could endure in wartime were certainly not appropriate for growing children. So far her opinion of these Muggles was low—though she could not fault them on cleanliness. She scrutinized the room as though she were inspecting the Gryffindor common room.

It was spotless.

"Miss Granger, where are your parents?"

"My grandmother will be home soon." Hermione set a loaded tray on the table and sat opposite on a chair. "My parents died in a car crash. When I was five. You should drink your tea while it's hot."

Minerva murmured condolences as she helped herself to a chipped cup of pale tea. She took a sip. Dull-looking, but strong in flavour. Much like its maker, actually. At first glance, Hermione Granger appeared a skinny scrap of a girl, lost in washed-out pyjamas too big for her, but there was nothing dull about her spirit.

Minerva didn't so much think of a needy kitten as the feral kneazles skulking around Hogsmeade.

"So, what about this school?"

"Yes. I might as well start explaining now. As I told you my name is Minerva McGonagall—Professor McGonagall, and I teach at Hogwarts, which is a school for wizards and witches."

Hermione didn't say a word throughout her clipped explanation that there were witches and wizards still living in secret all over the world, and her reassurances that they weren't dangerous like Muggles portrayed them in history books because the Ministry of Magic took responsibility for the Wizarding community. Hogwarts was, she explained, one of the finest schools in the world where students were taught a variety of lessons from making pineapples dance across desks to learning about creatures such as unicorns and dragons.

Hermione regarded her, stony-eyed. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Of course not. Look."

And she turned the sugar bowl into a guinea pig.

"But," said Hermione breathlessly, watching the guinea pig gnawing on the corner of the tray with a mixture of awe and shock, "but why—are you telling me—I can do magic?"

The professor smiled for the first time since she'd entered the house. "Absolutely. And at Hogwarts, we will teach you not only to use magic, but also to control it."

"When do I start? Hogwarts, you say? Where is it? In London?"

"Scotland. Only eleven-year-old students attend Hogwarts, and term starts on September second. Given that you'll turn eleven next week you'll actually board next year—"

"Um, what do you mean, eleven?"

"Your birthday, Miss Granger. Do try to keep up."

"How do you _know_ that? When is it?"

"When children of Britain show magical abilities, their names and birth-dates are written down in our records. And when they turn of age—and in your case, on 19 September—we offer them a place at Hogwarts. You know your own birthday, don't you?"

"I do now," Hermione said, and she left it at that.

The professor pulled out an elegant-looking white letter and gave it over.

 _Miss H. Granger_ _The living-room_ _1 Virginia Street,_ _Bow,_ _London_

"All the details are in here. You will leave from King's Cross Station on the first of September, of next year. There is already a train ticket too. If your grandmother wants you to, of course. Muggles—non-magical folk, that is, they have a harder time accepting magic than us. It's quite rare when a magical child is born of muggle parents, just like you. Muggleborns, we call them."

"Maybe I'm not completely muggleborn," said Hermione, her mind spinning with the possibilities. "I'm adopted—that's why I didn't know about my birthday. I only knew I was born round September. And it'd be better if you didn't tell my grandmother about the witch bit. She wouldn't understand, like you said."

 _Nothing a good spanking won't cure_ , Rosalind would most likely say about magic.

"Certainly not. Mrs Granger may not be your real grandmother, but she most certainly is your legal guardian, and there's no way around her consent. I am sure she would understand the situation, if I, an adult, would explain it to her.""She won't listen, I'm telling you."

Professor McGonagall didn't look convinced. "We shall see about that when she comes home," she said in a final tone. "By any chance, you don't know your birthparents' names, do you? They could be wizards—"

"They could be dead for all I know," Hermione cut her off. "I don't know anything. They found a necklace and some sheets on me when I was a baby. That's all."

"Found it on you? So you weren't exactly given to the orphanage?"

"No. They found me like most kids."

"On the doorstep?"

"Abandoned in the street."

Hermione shrugged, acting as if Professor McGonagall's tiny gasp and her admission meant nothing—even though it did.

Who'd want to admit that?

She was only a baby when she was wrapped in white sheets and left in some dirty street. Must have been a terribly cold night, pretty standard for London in March. Temperatures in the single digits. Worst wasn't even the weather; it was wondering how anyone could just leave a baby out there, in the dirt and dark, for some big dog to eat.

"I was about a year old when the Grangers adopted me," she said aloud, "so they're all I know."

"I see. Perhaps that necklace is some kind of family heirloom. I know that muggles also have them. Is there any name on it?"

"No. And it's broken, anyway. It's a locket, so I tried to open lots of times but it won't budge."

"May I see it?"

Hermione pulled the blue locket out from under her shirt and unclasped the silvery chain around her neck. Handling it with the same reverence her grandmother carried the Bible, she gave it over.

Professor McGonagall weighed it in her hand. It was old and valuable-looking, made of a sapphire stone, and imbedded around the edge with silver. "Goblin-wrought, obviously," she commented, and Hermione nodded like she perfectly understood what a goblin was. Then she tried to open it from all the sides—with no luck—before taking out a fawn-coloured wand and tapping the locket lightly, tracing a pentagon with the tip, all the while muttering unintelligible words that Hermione couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at.

Her second eyebrow joined the first when strands of smoke erupted from the wand, encasing the locket until all of it was covered in a glow of light spreading to the chain.

With a final tap of the wand, the light vanished, and they could clearly hear an unlocking noise.

Hesitantly, Hermione put the locket on her knee. It was hot to the touch. With a shaky breath, she opened it.

 _ **Nous N'oublions Pas**_

She brushed her fingers across the carved words, wondering their meaning, wondering who chose to write them here. A photograph was fitted on the other side. She turned it around and stared at the people forever captured by the camera's lens.

It was a young couple. A dark-haired, gorgeous woman wearing a blue skirt flowing around her calves stood next to a lean, tanned man, his white shirt loose at the collarbone and cuffed at the elbows. He had glanced down while the photograph was being taken. Messy blond curls tumbled over his brown eyes, the hint of a smile tugged at his lips. As for the woman, she flashed a double-dimpled grin at the camera, green eyes alight with dancing sparks. It was impossible not to think of a firework.

Hermione was transfixed by their expressions, how their fingers were entwined in a gesture so natural they didn't even seem aware of doing it. Oh, but how happy they looked. There was real love there. A painful knot lodged in her throat. She drew her eyes up, tried to swallow, and met the professor's gaze. Whatever was in her face made her push the locket away.

Minerva reached for it. She read the French words, extricated the picture from the locket, scanned it briefly and turned it over to see if there was anything written on the back. Nothing. She moved to return it to its place but stopped short: in that empty space was engraved a name.

 _ **Louise Sirona de Bourbon**_ _ **19.09.79**_

Minerva removed her spectacles. Methodically, she polished the lenses with her lace kerchief, then balanced them back on her nose.

She eyed the name again.

 _Bourbon!_ was her first thought, followed shortly by _old French pureblood_ , which collided with _Death-Eaters!_ and produced the baffling thought of _is this girl related to them?_ which was most logical, so her brain jumped to _if she is the Bourbons' child then what in Merlin's name is she doing here?_ and realized only the people involved could offer an explanation, and about that time she registered that Hermione had leaned in to see what she was staring at.

"Louise?. . .Could it be my name? Could they be my pa—" She broke off, unable to continue. Her hand pressed hard over her mouth, her other arm curled protectively around herself. Tears leaked from her eyes.

Minerva gave her a minute. The girl pulled it together. Chin coming up, shoulders squaring off. She didn't understand the story here, she had a lot of questions, actually. But by all appearances, Hermione Granger, Bourbon—whoever she was, she had been raised right.

Eleven years old, but she was tough.

"Pompous name," Hermione finally said. "These people look fancy, too. Do you reckon they could be my parents?"

"Let's not lose our heads, Miss Granger. All of this is very unexpected. See, the Bourbons are a French family. An old, wizarding French family."

"You mean they're wizards? And they're also still alive?"

"To my knowledge, yes," Minerva replied in a brisk tone. "I don't concern myself with politics, but I know for a fact that Mr Bourbon is a representative of the French Ministry to the International Confederation of Wizards." She squinted, bent closer. The photo was small, but upon closer inspection. . . "He looks young," she said, scouring her memory, "but I do think it's him. Merlin! What a small world."

"No, it's a large world," Hermione said, sniffing. "If it were a small world I'd have already run into these people who carry the same blood as I do."

There was a silence, and it gave Minerva a moment to collect her thoughts. And add to her mental notes. She was getting a good idea of the situation. Hermione had been orphaned while the Wizarding War was raging in England. French purebloods were regal socialites, famous worldwide for being elegant and snobby, and the Bourbons were a very ancient family noted for a liking of grandeur. They could have been involved with darker roots in some way or another, all those years back. . .You-Know-Who's followers who had hidden their child away? Lost her? What were the chances?

"You said Ministry. . ." Hermione's voice grew an edge. "Meaning that Bourbon bloke isn't poor, right?"

"He is rich, powerful, and well-connected." Minerva set the heirloom on the table with a soft _clunk._ "Being a Bourbon is no small thing."

"Really? Then why did they give me up for adoption? In another bloody _country?"_

"What you must understand, Miss Granger—or Miss Bourbon, is that it might not have been intentional. You don't know but we were at war, years ago."

"War? What happened?"

"About ten years ago now, there was this—dark wizard, and his army. He wanted power, and planned a revolution against the Ministry of Magic. . .Those were dark days. Cold, dreary days. He started taking over the country, killing whoever stood up to him. Simply horrifying, every week, news came of deaths, muggles and wizards alike, disappearances, torturing..." Minerva trailed off.

"What I mean is that life sometimes separates us from our loved ones. I doubt your parents ever wanted to give you up, as you put it."

She gestured toward the locket, reminiscing as hundreds of thoughts and faces and names and deaths and memories fought for room in her head, before she stated in a firm voice, as if her words held an intangible truth, "Family is a responsibility that wizards don't take lightly. We take care of our own."

* * *

 _ **A/N: This is a reboot of my fic LZG, I wasn't satisfied with the way it turned out so** **after a lot of debating with myself I decided to r** **ewrit**_ ** _e it. Overall the plot is the same but with some noticeable differences._**


	2. 2

_**2**_

Hermione did a magic trick.

Nobody noticed.

Boys and girls, all in the same brown uniform, on foot or on bicycles, left the school gates, swarming in a thousand different directions on the tree-lined lane as if someone had kicked over a beehive. None of them noticed the leaves swishing unnaturally fast at her feet, a swirl of scattered gold coins.

A heavy shoulder slammed into Hermione from behind. She stumbled, nearly pitched face-first into the ground and lost her focus. The leaves fell limply, turning slowly on their way to the ground.

A middle-aged man glared down at her. "Watch your bloody self!"

"Why don't you watch your fat feet?" Hermione snapped back, and took some satisfaction from the surprise that came over his broad face. People, particularly grown men dressed in overcoats, didn't expect lip from little girls.

The man got over the novelty and gave her a dirty look as he clutched his briefcase, then disappeared into the crowd of parents holding plastic umbrellas and waiting to collect their children.

Hermione readjusted the straps of her backpack, and started down the street, sticking her fists in her pockets. Her coat wasn't completely up to the job of battling the chill rain, but she hunched her shoulders and soldiered through. Autumn had fallen in London, fleeting and sappy-sweet with reddish-gold light and cool breezes and its carpet of multicoloured leaves crunching under her feet.

"Oi, Granger!"

Hermione looked up to see a black, burly boy waving at her from across the street. "We're hitting the video arcade then McDonald!" he bellowed, his hands cupped around his mouth. "Wanna come with?"

"Not today!" she yelled back, then made a show of turning out her empty coat pockets with a sad look.

Larry had a good laugh at her expense, shrugged his shoulders and walked up to the group of kids gathered at the bus stop.

Hermione watched them chatting and joking around with envy. Video games and fast-food. Lucky wankers. She'd kill for fries right about now. Salt-encrusted, greasy, golden fries. Smashing them, stuffing them in her mouth. She wanted bagfuls. Dipped in ketchup. Smothered in mayonnaise. And a burger dripping cheese on a white bun and piled high with tomatoes, onions, and pickles. She'd take greedy, gulping bites, sinking her teeth in the juicy meat. Life just couldn't get any better than that.

Hermione was so lost in her daydream that she tripped on the sidewalk and fell to her knees. _This is why people make fun of you Granger,_ she thought as she dusted herself off. Ignoring the girls snickering behind her, she briskly walked on, soon making her way to the big green overflowing skip on the street corner outside her house. After making sure no one was looking, she pushed open the lid, climbed up, and dived inside to search. Cold moisture tingled on her skin as something mushy swamped her fingers.

Hermione Granger, intrepid skip-diver, didn't even flinch. The first time she had done this the slightest touch of anything wet had made her whip her hand and wipe it frantically on her clothes. Now not even a dead rat would stop her. She could never get over the way people threw away perfectly good food: apples, hard-boiled eggs, peanut-butter crackers, sliced pickles, cartons of milk, sandwiches with just one bite taken out because some tosser didn't like the olives in the cheese. On lucky days, she found more food than she needed, and hid it in her secret stash at home. Today she found two pears and cardboard boxes filled with chocolates. Some were dried-out-looking, and some were squashed, but the rest were fine. Hermione smiled cheerfully as she jumped down and polished off her tasty finds. It was like takeaway, but free. She pigged out on chocolates all the way home.

When she walked in, her grandmother was watching the telly in the living-room and taking swigs from a bottle of gin. She noticed Hermione silently staring from the doorway. "Girl, I'm seventy-five," she barked. "It won't be the drinking that gets me, all right. Unless it's poisoned!"

 _Poison,_ Hermione thought as she kicked off her shoes. _Hmm, an interesting idea._

"Do you know, I ran into Judith at the store today. Had a nice little chat."

That was never good. With the back of her hand Hermione discreetly wiped her lips, still greasy from the chocolate.

"You know what she said?"

Something that was bound to make life less enjoyable?

"She mentioned how she saw you with that nigger again. . .What's his name, Barry? No, Larry. The one from your class. Is that it?"

Hermione didn't reply.

Her grandmother took a long, contemplative swallow. "Keep this up and people will say we're bad company. I won't stand for it. How can you stomach the smell, anyhow?" She chuckled to herself as she grabbed the remote and changed channels. _Click_. "Not only do these people stink, but they're lazy halfwits." _Click_. _Click_. "Judith told me a drunk nigger took a whiz in her rose bushes last week. Christ, this country's going to the dogs."

A pressure built in Hermione's chest and she had to let it out. "You're really not supposed to use that word," she said. "Black people are just like us, except for the colour of their skin."

Her grandmother stared. Hermione thought she might backhand her, but instead she said softly, "You ungrateful little cow. I'll be damned if you're eating my food tonight. Get your worthless arse outside."

 **. . .**

301 days left until Hogwarts.

Hermione slammed the rake down as she gathered copper-brown leaves into a neat pile in the garden. She had made a calendar which she kept rolled up at the bottom of her school bag. Every morning she marked off another square. People in prison ticked off the days like that, scratching a line on the walls of their cell. The countdown began the day she met Minerva McGonagall. She'd marked off fifty-one calendar-days since. The old routine had established itself again. School, home, sleep, repeat.

She might not have a family, but she will go to Hogwarts next year. Hermione yanked the rake through the leaves and assured herself that she'd always known that.

So what, if in the first week or so after Professor McGonagall had blown through her life saying she'd contact the Bourbons, Hermione'd had a few fairy-tale daydreams in which wizardly relatives came and swept her off to live with them? It was to be expected. Who could blame her? It wasn't like potential parents and siblings were lined up outside her grandmother's front-door—which needed a fresh coat of white paint. Hermione'd indulged in a very short moment of self-pity. Seven days of being a depressed loser, tops. When days turned into weeks and weeks into a month, she'd adjusted.

By the middle of October, she no longer ran for the front-door every time someone knocked. By the end of the month, she didn't come home from school every afternoon and looked around the street to see if there just might be a tall wizard or a petite witch somewhere in the vicinity.

By the first of November, she had pretty much stopped studying the picture in her locket and forgotten what these people looked like. She barely remembered the dimples in the brown-haired witch's cheeks or the way she held herself, head high, as if she were ready to defy the whole world. And she'd almost forgotten how oddly the wizard was dressed, in a white shirt and riding breeches tucked into high black boots. She'd never see the bloke anyway, so there was certainly no point in remembering his clothes. She wasn't even sure anymore if his blond ponytail stopped just below the nape of his neck or crept down a bit more.

She wasn't staring off into space the way she did the week of her birthday. She almost never folded mismatched socks together anymore. And if the maths teacher was short-tempered with her, it was because he was an annoying git, not because she was spacing-out when she ought to be solving multi-step inequalities. Everything was fine. Perfectly fine.

The garden rake slipped out of Hermione's grip. She half-heartedly kicked it out of the way, and, shoulders drooped, shuffled her way to the kitchen. No, it wasn't fine, not really. She had a million questions and no one to ask them to. Why did her very rich, very living parents give her away? Why couldn't they have kept her?

In fact, she thought as she lifted the black rubbish bag from the bin and tied it up, why have a baby in the first place? Made no sense to her. She put a new bag in, stepped out the door and down two steps the dirt path. They cared enough to make a baby, give her a name, engraved this name in a locket—and then they just threw her away? In another country? What kind of crazy people did that?

Hermione hefted the full bag of rubbish into the wheelie bin, slammed down the lid, and muttered crossly, "Family my arse!"

She let out a long, slow sigh, as though she had been holding a century of air. The sun was setting down, the sky was a mixture of violet and mango-red. An hour at least until it got completely dark out. Enough time for a nice walk, since Rosalind was asleep. She'd sunk her bottle of gin then passed out snoring on her bed. One of the perks of alcohol. Hermione was about to go in the house when something clinked, like metal against metal.

There was her neighbour, Timothy Kane, in his front-yard. He was painting a cool-looking bike with chrome wheels and one of those cushioned banana seats. The bike went from blue to black in a matter of minutes. Hermione didn't bother asking the sixteen-year-old where the bike came from but she could imagine the conversation:

 _Hey, Tim. Nice bike._

 _Thanks._

 _Where'd you get it?_

 _Oh. . .I found it._

 _Really? Where?_

 _Um. . .In someone's garage._

Always "finding" stuff. Fishing rods, tennis racquets, street hockey equipment, roller skates. You name it—Tim "found" it. Whenever he needed something he miraculously "found" it.

"Problem, Hermione?"

Hermione found him staring straight at her. "Cool bike. Where'd you get it?"

"Just found it." Tim narrowed his eyes. "Where're you sneaking off to, anyhow? It's quarter to nine."

Who appointed him in charge of the street's curfew? "To church," she told him snidely. "To confess my sins. You should come too. Jesus loves you—even if everyone else thinks you're an idiot."

"You've got a real smart mouth, I'll give you that. I'm surprised your nan hasn't beaten it out of you yet."

"Oh, don't blame her. She beats me the best she can."

"That's neat, now how 'bout you fuck off before _I_ take care of that?"

"Your mum wouldn't want you talking like that, Timmy."

Tim made an exaggerated show of flipping her off.

Hermione pulled her lower eyelids down and stuck out her tongue. When Tim refused to acknowledge her, she turned around and braced her elbows against the low brick wall around his house. She leaned back and stared out lazily at the street. Evening was falling around them. Street lamps flickered, blearily buzzing to life, mosquitoes and flies gathering to their light. Beer cans clattered along the pavement and dead leaves swirled in their trail.

A rare breeze brought new, pure odours of freshly turned earth and sun-warmed stones. Hermione sniffed the air and looked around in puzzlement.

One moment the street was empty—the next this stranger was standing in the opposite neighbour's doorway as if an invisible blind had been yanked up.

Hermione rubbed her eyes and looked again. He was still there.

Tim had noticed him too. "Who's that posh sod standing over Shepherd's house?"

"I don't know."

"What the hell? Why do nutters always pick on our neighbourhood?"

"I'm buggered if I know, Tim."

"He looks dodgy as fuck, doesn't he? We should tell him about the dress-code."

Hermione eyed the man's expensive-looking clothes. Black turtleneck, pressed black trousers, big light-beige overcoat, shiny brown shoes. Dodgy, right. Completely out of place. Absurdly incongruous. There were places where you might expect to bump into that kind of man. At a Buckingham Palace garden party, or an opera house, or eating chocolate truffles at some foreign ambassador's costume party.

Certainly not in front of their filthy-tempered, cantankerous neighbour's front-door. Was it possible they knew each other? Hermione seriously doubted it. Just yesterday Mr Shepherd was drunk at ten o'clock in the morning and got thrown out of the butcher's for swearing and singing. When he saw Hermione go in the shop, he started shouting 'Give the smarmy bugger one for me, Hermione!'.

The stranger was tall, slim, blond. He raised a black-gloved hand and pushed the intercom buttons. He did this at least ten times, straight-faced, before Mr Shepherd's angry voice came out, crackling with static. _"Bloody kids!"_ he roared. _"Go fuck with someone else! If I ever catch your arses I swear I'll gouge your eyes out! With my thumbs!"_

The man looked mildly surprised by the outburst.

Tim snorted and made another mocking comment before going back to his house. The blond man tilted his head sideways and glanced over, as if realizing he had an audience. He met Hermione's gaze and inclined his head politely, and she had a feeling that if he'd had a hat he would have tipped it. She nodded back, and waited for him to look away. He didn't. He stared at her speculatively for a moment, then marched straight toward her.

Hermione felt like she was about to witness a train wreck. With a few long, purposeful strides, the stranger had closed the distance between them. She was struck with a waft of coffee, some kind of sweet caramel and when she looked up, she found herself face-to-face with the man in her locket.

. . .

Mr Bourbon was staring at her as if she were some sort of exotic insect. What was she doing, anyway? Hermione asked herself.

 _Looking for answers_ , a voice within her whispered.

All the times she'd imagined meeting the Bourbons, she tried to think of everything that could go wrong. She'd pictured the couple telling her she wasn't related to them. She'd imagined Mr Bourbon admitting to being her father and not wanting anything to do with her. She'd even figured he might think she was crazy.

Now that he was here, she studied him cautiously. What she knew about wizards could have been stuffed into a thimble. She had a vague impression that they were distracted and old with rumpled faces and long beards. Mr Bourbon was far from that. He was handsome, clean-shaven, well-dressed and couldn't be much over thirty. The only thing untidy about him was his short blond hair, tousled as if he'd been in a windstorm.

"I had this made for my daughter," he said in cultivated English, holding up the locket. "I want a blood test."

"Um, well, you could tell me more about yourself first. I mean, I don't even know your name."

He sighed in a very posh sort of way before he complied. His name was 'Nathaniel de Bourbon', and Hermione had to suppress a snort there. He was French, had lost his wife and daughter about ten years ago while they lived in London because of the Wizarding War and believed they both died, although they had never found the body of his baby girl. Still, hearing that his daughter might be alive made no sense at all to him.

"I would be very displeased," Nathaniel Bourbon said in his aloof, cool way, "if it appears you have stolen a valuable family heirloom."

It sounded ominously like a threat. Hermione rethought the wisdom of letting a total stranger in the house. "About this blood test," she said with an anxious little cough. "We'll have to go to the hospital, I think?"

"No need," Mr Bourbon stated. He pulled out a dark-brown wand and waved it in a circle. With a _pop_ , a tiny vial of a lavender-coloured substance materialized on the table. Next he fished a knife out of his pocket and extended his hand.

Tentatively, Hermione reached out. He cut a stinging line on the back of her arm, and she watched her blood drip into the vial, sizzling as each drop collided with the surface as though it was hot. After a moment lilac turned into a deep shade of purple.

The wizard did the same with his own arm, and they waited silently as his blood fizzled completely into the liquid. Then, not unlike Professor McGonagall had done, he murmured words that seemed like Latin or Greek, and the vial flashed like some sort of chemical reaction.

Hermione waited, and waited. Mr Bourbon didn't seem to want to say anything. He was just staring at the vial.

She cleared her throat. No reaction. No acknowledgment. She leaned forward, wanting to see what was the deal with that goddamned liquid. Well, it had changed colours again, this time turning to blood-red. Still meant nothing to her.

Mr Bourbon was blank-faced. His lack of reaction was clearly disturbing. Then again, he wasn't your average man. Curling her lip, she shifted toward him, aiming to shake him by the shoulder, when he snapped his head back to hers, abruptly head-butting her in the process.

Hermione scowled, rubbing her forehead and glaring at him.

"The test is positive," he said stiffly.

She glared some more. Then, what he'd said registered in her mind. Surprise siphoned the blood from her face and she choked.

. . .

Hermione felt herself coming back through a long black tunnel. Blearily, her eyes opened. She was lying on the couch, a damp cloth covered her forehead.

"You fainted," said a voice above her. She sat up and the first thing she saw was the face of Nathaniel Bourbon. He sounded as though his nose was stuffed up, his red eyelids looked like he'd just been crying. He was openly staring, as if he'd never seen anything quite like her before.

The memories came flooding back. Hermione looked at him in a whole new way. This man was her father.

She quelled that thought as soon as it came into her head.

 _He's not my father. He didn't want the job. He abandoned me in a dirty street._

Whatever expression was on her face made him say sharply, "Put your head between your knees, Hermione." He gently pushed her head forward and Hermione took several large breaths.

After a moment, she sat back up and leaned her head against the back of the couch. Nathaniel held out a glass of water and she took it, all the while staring at him. "This," she said roughly. "What does it all mean?"

"This means," he bit off. "That you are my daughter."

"This isn't true." Hermione blundered back, the couch's springs groaning under her weight. "You're nothing to me, _nothing."_

There was shock on the man's face, shock and disbelief and, worst of all, hurt.

How _dared_ he be hurt? He wasn't the one who had been abandoned. Crumpled up and thrown away like used tissue paper.

"I understand," he said helplessly. "You have every right to be angry. But you have to know, neither your mother nor I had any ide—"

"You and your wife," Hermione said in a voice that was too loud and too hard, "are not my parents. Real parents don't abandon their babies."

Nathaniel Bourbon stared at the table for a moment before answering. "When the letter arrived," he said softly, "I didn't believe it, either. I was quite certain that it was a swindle, of the basest kind, attempting to play on my emotions as a prelude to blackmail. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time. The whole story was very plausible—but people can do incredible things thanks to the medias these days." His eyes lifted back to hers. "I knew none of it could be true."

"Why not?"

"Because like my wife, my daughter—my baby—was dead."

Dead.

The word shivered through the flowery living-room. "That's absurd!" Hermione snapped.

"It is," said Nathaniel quietly, "what I was told."

Hermione didn't know what to say. She felt like she had been presented with her own tombstone. There was something disquieting about being told you were dead, even when you knew very bloody well you weren't.

"I've spent years believing that my dau—that _you_ were dead." His voice trembled. "I have tried to accept that fact, that you were gone, yet every time someone brought it up it just opened up that old wound. As if someone poured alcohol all over it. I ho—"

"Prove it," she blurted, unable to listen any longer.

"Prove it?"

She looked at him closely. His blond, short hair. Keen, brown eyes looked out over a straight nose that might have been drawn with a ruler. Thin lips and straight brows gave him a serious expression.

He _could_ be her father.

"I want to believe you're my father," she said slowly. "But how do I know that you're telling the truth? You just did your magical thing. I don't know a thing about magic. How am I just supposed to believe you? Prove it that you're my father. Or we can do a real test."

"This was a real test."

"I meant, a non-magical test. A muggle one."

"No need. I already know that you are my daughter. You do favour me but you have Marie's colouring."

"Who?"

"Marie Bourbon. Your late mother."

"All right, so I look like this woman. Doesn't prove anything."

A moment passed, a kaleidoscope of emotions crossed Nathaniel Bourbon's face. "I understand how confusing and unsettling this must be for you," he said slowly. "But first, I want you to know that you have been dearly missed. All these years and not a single day passed that I didn't think of you and your mother." He reached out as if to touch her arm but apparently thought better of it. "Far be it from me to scare you but I can't tell you how blessed I am. I hope you will one day forgive me for. . ." He raked a hand through his hair and exhaled harshly. "I thought you were dead. I didn't know. . .If I had known, if I'd had the slightest inkling, I would have come, Hermione. I swear it to you. I would have moved heaven and earth to find you."

Hermione felt a tightening in her chest, as if someone had pulled a rope round her, slipping the knot so that she couldn't breathe.

 _You have been missed._

"Prove it," she repeated.

Nathaniel wiped his face with his hand. "Your name is Louise de Bourbon," he said in a calmer tone. "Or at least, that is the name you were given at birth. You were born on September 19, 1979, to Lady Marie Bourbon and myself. Your mother died the following year, while you were a few months old. We never found a body." He glanced around. "How did you wind up in this. . .warehouse?"

"I was adopted from an orphanage." Hermione saw his eyes widen then narrow. "Go on," she prompted. "What else?"

"What else shall I tell you. . .Your blood type is O positive."

"I don't know what my blood type is. Do you have anything else? None of this is helping."

He seemed to be thinking hard for a second, his eyes looking up at a point high on the wall. He snapped his fingers suddenly. " _Mais oui,_ I know, of course. You have a birthmark behind your knee."

 _How_ did he know that? Hermione did her best to keep a poker face and asked, "Which one?"

"Behind your right knee. It quite looks like a key, doesn't it? You also have an mole on your back. If it hasn't disappeared, and if I'm not mistaken, it's just under your left shoulder blade."

Hermione's breath caught in her throat. She glanced down at her knees, where she knew was a brown birthmark that did look like an old skeleton key. It wasn't very big, but she hated it all the same.

"Hermione," Nathaniel started, then caught himself. "I mean, Louise?"

"Hermione. I just. . .I'm used. . .Hermione."

"Hermione, you _are_ my daughter." he went on matter-of-factly. He reached into his coat and laid a photograph in front of her. "Our daughter."

Hermione recognized the woman named Marie, even if her dark hair was cut short in this picture, just below her ears. She was sitting on the carpeted floor of a living-room and holding a baby with a tuft of blond hair. Both of them looked healthy. Hermione picked up the picture, examined it more closely and breathed out. "Tell me about her. My. . .my mum."

"Your mother's name was Marie Grimaldi. She was the daughter of an American witch and a French muggle, a politician, and I met her at Beauxbatons when we were children. We—"

"Beau-what?"

Nathaniel gave her an odd look. "Beauxbatons. Don't you—ah, I forgot. Muggles." He frowned thoughtfully. "Beauxbatons Academy is a wizarding school, like Hogwarts. The biggest in Europe, in fact. Your mother and I both studied there. We were married after we graduated and some years later, you were born."

"So I'm the daughter of a witch and a wizard?" asked Hermione, in shock. Yes, she knew she was in shock, because she was starting to believe in it all.

"Oh, you are," Nathaniel confirmed, smiling. "Two sets of parents in a lifetime. You are a lucky witch, don't you think? Well, or unlucky. . .It depends on how you look at it. Are they home? I would like to meet them, sweetheart."

Hermione blinked at the endearment. "Who? Ah, my parents—the Grangers? Oh, no, no. They passed away when I was five. Car crash. There's only Grandma Rosalind. And me. Obviously."

For a split second, she could have sworn a quick smile crossed his face. "My deepest condolences. This must have been really hard on you."

"No. Yes." Hermione forced a laugh. "Sorry, I'm a bit confused right now. This is crazy."

"There is nothing to be confused about," he said with a one-shoulder shrug. "After eleven years, my daughter has returned to me."

Hermione lifted her chin and spoke the words that felt like poison in her mouth. "So what, now?"

Her father—she couldn't believe that was possible—cocked an eyebrow.

"What happens now? Are you going back to France? What's going to happen to me?" she said in a rush. "Do you want me back? Am I going with you?" Her voice trailed off as her courage fizzled, and she held her breath, waiting. Waiting for an answer, waiting for a nice go to hell, waiting for something, anything.

She didn't know what to expect from her father, but certainly not laughter. "Oh, Hermione," he said with a charming grin. "Don't be silly, dear."

Hermione reddened, more out of shame than anything. He was right. Had she gone bonkers? How could she believe that a wizard like him would want anything to do with her? He probably had his life already in order. What did Professor McGonagall say again? International Wizards or something like that. Head of his house, whatever did that mean. He was an important wizard. Rich. Maybe he had remarried. Maybe he had other children.

"Can I keep the necklace, at least?" That was the only thing she could really call hers. She didn't want to part from it.

"The locket?" He sounded confused. "Of course, it is yours."

"Thanks."

"I suggest we leave tomorrow. We can sort things out from Bourges. Are you not going to miss this muggle woman?"

Now it was her turn to be confused. "Where to?"

"Bourges," said Nathaniel readily. "Short for Château de Bourgogne-l'Archambaud. Ancient seat of the Bourbons in the countryside. The townhouse in Paris is Montignac House." He looked around the living-room with distaste. "Or perhaps you would prefer to stay here with your. . .friends? I could buy a house near this neighbourhood. We could come visit whenever you want to."

"I'm going with you?"

"Yes. Do you still not believe I am your father?" She could hear the frustration in his voice. "Where can I find this muggle test you were talking about?" He looked down at his watch. "Eleven. All the muggle shops around here are closed by now, are they not?"

Hermione's mind spun in a thousand different directions and she grasped the first coherent words that blew past. "You want me to go with you. You want to bring me to France."

Silence followed.

"Of course you are coming with me! Where you belong."

Hermione's face went blank.

"I can see you're surprised. I'm surprised too." He cleared his throat and shifted uneasily. "I thought. . .France is a beautiful country blessed with great resources and people. I wanted to start with you moving into the chateau. Dear me, I am afraid that I got a bit ahead of myself. Hermione, would you like to have me as a father?" She must have had an odd expression because he smoothly added, "Perhaps we should take time to acquaint ourselves with the situation. Although nothing would make me happier than have you come live with us. You are my daughter. Mine. You belong with us, with your family. So many people will want to meet you, my dear. Not to mention Lucas. I should have brought him along." He blinked. "Oh, Merlin. I'm babbling, aren't I? I'm truly babbling. So, what do you say, Hermione?"

Hermione laughed incredulously. "Hell, I don't care where we live. I'm still going to live with you, right?"

"If that is what you want."

"That's settled, then. When are we leaving? Can I call you Dad?"

Her father didn't answer. He just stared.

"Oh," said Hermione, crestfallen. "Are you worried that I'll be in your way? Because I won't. I know I won't. I could get a job of some kind, you know, so it won't even cost you much extra to have me living with you. I'm a hard worker, I sweep, mop and run errands. I can sleep on your couch. Not fussy when it comes to sleeping. I could sleep standing up in a closet if I had to. You won't even know I'm here. And about school—Professor McGonagall said Hogwarts was free. I've asked."

Nathaniel let out a sound that could only be classified as a snort. "You will not sleep on a couch. You are a Bourbon. You will have a bedroom. Several, if you want."

"Are you serious? A whole room all to myself?"

He smiled self-deprecatingly. "We are a wealthy family."

"You're not just wealthy," said Hermione, squinting her eyes. "You're really, really, really wealthy."

"I know that," he replied, a bit bemusedly.

"Do your toilets flush on their own?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You know. They probably have these sensor things. When your butt lifts off the seat, they flush. I've never tried them myself but I've seen them on the telly and I found myself thinking, what a great way to know if someone is rich or not. Self-flushing toilets."

"I do not have self-flushing toilets."

"No?" Hermione's expression fell. "That's all right, I mean. Doesn't bother me. A little manual labor never hurt anyone."

"I would hardly consider flushing a toilet a manual labor."

"Yes," she said patiently. "But if you were used to them flushing on their own you'd probably think so." She was about to add something when her stomach made a loud, rumbling noise. She flushed red at the sound, causing her father to chuckle out loud.

"Hungry? I guess we worked up an appetite."

He pulled out his wand again and a tray of drinks and snacks popped into existence. A plate of eggs, smoked meat and—was that cress sandwiches?

"By all means, help yourself."

Hermione didn't need to be told twice. "Incredible," she said in admiration, examining the eggs. "That's real food. It's like a fast-food drive through."

Her father cocked an eyebrow. He was sipping coffee from a white round cup. "What is that?"

"You know," said Hermione, munching on a scrap of smoked meat. So good. She had to wrap these up in something and save them for later. "When you want a burger and fries, but you don't want to get out of your car? You place the order and pay, then get your food, never putting out more effort than rolling down the window. I've always wanted to try it."

"I see," Nathaniel nodded slowly. He didn't see exactly what she was talking about, but it didn't matter. His daughter was alive. Alive, breathing, unhurt. That was all he needed to see or hear.

He remembered the very first time his baby girl had grabbed his finger, only one hour old, her impossibly tiny hand wrapping with determination around his ridiculously large index finger.

He watched those same fingers now as Hermione picked up a sandwich. Goodness, it made him want to weep all over again. He couldn't help it. Eleven years had come and gone and he wanted to call it all back. He wanted to pull every single moment and hold them close because they should have been his. His daughter's first words, first steps, first day of school.

How could a man felt so completely happy and utterly sad at the same time?

"Oh, no. I completely forgot."

Nathaniel shook his head and looked up. "What did you forget, dear?"

"My grandmother." Hermione crossed her arms. "I don't think she'll let me go with you. Can't we go to the orphanage and get adoption papers?"

 _Let_ her go? The chuckle seemed to be plucked right out of him. "Don't fret. I can be very persuasive."

"You wouldn't be saying that if you knew Rosalind. She's—" Hermione grimaced. "She's a bit hardheaded."

"She can't be that bad."

His daughter's expression said _Oh, boy, she can._

"What is her name again?"

"Rosalind Granger."

"Where is this Mrs Granger? I'll speak to her now."

Hermione's eyes flicked to the corridor, and panic flooded her face. "I don't think that's a very good idea," she said in a tone that implied it was actually the worst idea one could have. "Grandma doesn't like to be bothered when she's sleeping." Her expression turned hopeful. "Can you come back tomorrow? Or whenever you want, really."

"Of course," said Nathaniel, standing. He didn't know how he was going to stay away from that house now that he knew his daughter was there but he'll manage, somehow. He didn't want to rush her or push her or frighten her away.

"Say. . ."

He glanced down at Hermione, who was plucking at the sofa.

"You're not going to disappear again, right? You'll really come back?"

"Never," he said fiercely. "I will never leave you. Now that I have found you, I will never go, Hermione."

She stared at him, stone-faced.

"Here, let's try this," he said, extending a hand toward her. "My name is Nathaniel, but friends usually call me Nathan. Some call me Nate. I would really like you to call me Dad. May I please be a part of your life?"

Tears dripped from her eyes, and she brushed them away with impatient hands. "You may," she choked out.

"Thank you," he said softly. "Now, may I ask for a hug?"

Hermione waited a beat, remembering all the times she'd thought of this moment. In daydreams where she imagined having parents who loved her unconditionally and wanted to protect her from the world. Every orphan, every foster kid had that same dream. Hope for someone to show up in their lives and say, _'There you are. I've been looking for you.'_

 _'You're safe now.'_

She opened her arms.


	3. 3

**_3_**

 _My name is Louise Bourbon. Louise Sirona Bourbon._

Hermione sank into the car's soft leather upholstery, clinging to her blue locket, while trying out her real name again and again, waiting to see if it would roll naturally off her tongue. They were swiftly moving through London. She tried to absorb all the sights and sounds of the city, but it was too overwhelming. There was simply too much happening at once.

Louise. Sirona. Bourbon.

It still felt unnatural, stilted on her lips.

All of her life, she had considered herself two people: Hermione Granger and Girl—Rosalind didn't use her name much. Now, according to her father, Nathaniel Bourbon, she was actually three people: Louise Bourbon, Hermione Granger, and. . . well, _et al._ Girl. You. Rat. Vermin.

The notion confused her. She rested her head against the cool glass of the window. The gleaming black Mercedes was without a doubt the cleanest, most valeted car she had ever been in.

This morning, she thought she had just woken up from the oddest dream she'd ever had, but it turned out the scene awaiting her was even odder: Nathaniel Bourbon, standing in the living-room, and Rosalind Granger, hanging on his every word as if her own life depended on them. Twenty minutes later, Hermione had packed-up all her things and was saying goodbye to her blank-faced, glassy-eyed grandmother and following her father outside. There the car had awaited them and a man dressed in a tailored black suit and overcoat had placed her luggage in the boot before sitting in the driver's seat.

He was driving without talking and Hermione wondered if he was one of her father's friends and if he was coming with them to France. They were supposed to 'Floo' straight to 'Bourges'. 'Floo-ing' was some sort of magical transportation using fire. 'Bourges' was a centuries-old wizarding village in the heart of the French countryside, the area between Paris and the Loire valley that used to be the centre of the kingdom.

They stopped for breakfast—a large chocolate-chip muffin and apple juice for Hermione, toast and black coffee for her father—and ate as the car purred along. She was quite tempted to wave graciously at the people trudging along the pavements on the other side of the tinted glass.

All too quickly, they came to a stop in an ordinary-looking street.

" _Tout le monde descend,"_ Nathaniel sang-out as he stepped out of the car, and held the door for her. She didn't have the heart to remind him that she didn't understand a word of French, except for baguette.

He looked around, up and down the street at houses and windows, and started to walk with a spring in his step.

Hermione followed suit, half-expecting him to burst into a Disney song at any moment now. It dawned on her that her hands were empty. "Oh—wait!"

"What is the matter?" her father asked curiously.

"I'll just go get my bag out of the car," she said, changing directions. "I forgot it—"

"No need. I'll have Felix bring it."

"Felix?"

"The chauffeur."

Hermione stared. "Will he bring me a burger and fries, too?"

"Of course, dear. Still hungry?"

"No. I was just joking."

"I see. You're more like Lucas than I first thought."

Hermione didn't ask who Lucas was. Unreal, just unreal, she thought staring up at her father. She felt like the heroine of a movie, but that might be because of Nathaniel's resemblance to a prince. There was no denying that with his side-parted hair, aristocratic face and born-with-money attitude, he was out of this world.

After the chauffeur'd brought the bag, they crossed a road and headed toward a sloping little street. They were in Whitehall, and passersby—women, in particular—stared as they walked. Hermione couldn't blame them. Not only was her father wearing a tight-fitting blue-pinstripe suit and smiling to himself, he insisted on holding _her hand._

What the hell? If she were him, she wouldn't want to hold her hand. Her jumper was a size too big, her jeans frayed at the bottom, the sole of her left trainer came loose. She looked as she usually did—homeless. There wasn't a single thing that qualified her to act as Nathaniel Bourbon's daughter, except that she actually was his daughter.

She glanced up at the folded white handkerchief poking out of his top pocket. "You're so dressed up. Jeans are much more comfortable, you know. Do you even _own_ a pair of jeans?"

"This is an odd question to ask at a time like this. But no."

"Most men own at least a dozen pair."

"Well, I'm not most men, am I?"

"You're certainly not," Hermione confirmed as they halted in front of an abandoned red telephone booth between two shabby-looking offices. She'd been told the entire British Ministry of Magic was underground, which explained why she hadn't seen any humongous government-owned building yet.

"I think this is it," Nathaniel said thoughtfully. "This telephone box leads to the atrium of the Ministry. I have never used it, myself."

Hermione was about to ask how many levels there were when a bespectacled woman and a young lad hurried into the telephone box. A moment later, the box trembled and it sank slowly into the ground out of sight.

"Doesn't look safe to me," she said dubiously. What was the oxygen level down there? "Can't we use the stairs? Or another way?"

"We can always apparate if you want to. You will need to hold on to my hand very tightly."

Hermione beamed and took his large hand. He beamed back, spun without warning and she nearly threw up her muffin. Everything went black, she was being squeezed in a giant fist, crushed from all directions, and _bang—her_ feet hit the floor again.

Hermione put her hands over her chest and dragged fast breaths in. That was one of the most horrible things she had ever experienced, and her neighbour was Tim Kane—self-proclaimed master of wedgies, whitewashings, dead legs, dead arms, dead torsos, DDTs, possible Indian burnings, and swirlies.

It took her a moment to realize they had _teleported._ Now they were standing next to a massive fountain, in a high, long hall with dark wood floors and a life of its own. Mysterious golden symbols glided across the blue ceiling, crackles and sparks erupted from glided fireplaces against the side walls, wizards and witches made loud popping noises as they appeared out of thin air.

Hermione tugged sharply on her father's arm. "There are _people_ in the fireplaces!" she hissed, staring at a spidery-thin woman who was spinning out of the fire with a bleary expression.

"That's the floo, darling," he said off-handedly. "Look, this is far more interesting."

He gestured at the three gigantesque golden statues set in the center of the fountain pool. A handsome wizard standing next to a beautiful witch, both holding up magical wands, a centaur about to release an arrow from a bow, a creature that looked like a fat, grumpy elf and an actual elf wearing a toga.

"What are those creatures?"

"A centaur, a goblin, and a house-elf. Just some of the old races."

"Why don't they have wands?"

"The law forbids it, and they have their own wandless magic anyway."  
Hermione nodded. More interestingly, she noticed silver and bronze coins glinting from the bottom of the water. A small smudged sign beside read:

 _All proceeds from the Fountain of Magical Brethren will be given to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries_

Just as she was calculating whether someone would catch her if she stuck her hand in the water and pocketed some change, her father walked away so quickly she almost had to run to keep up with him. He looked over and pulled her by the hand. They walked through golden gates to a smaller hall, then entered a lift with a wizard wearing plum-coloured robes with an elaborately worked silver _W_ on the chest. He was reading an extremely long piece of parchment that was trailing on the floor and didn't pay them any attention.

Hermione was trying to read over his shoulder when a cool, female voice announced,

"Level Five, Department of International Magical Cooperation, incorporating the International Magical Trading Standards Body, the International Magical Office of Law and the International Confederation of Wizards, British Seats."

"Come on, this way." Her father beckoned her along when the lift doors opened. "As you heard, this is the Department of International Cooperation," he said as Hermione fell into step beside him in the long aisle. She noted glossy wooden doors every now and then, presumably leading to offices. "Here, British officials work together with foreign wizards, to organize worldwide events for instance, or create regulations, or even solve legal issues—you know, treaties, fugitives. . .International politics can be turbulent, so it's quite the challenge," he went on, strolling about, nodding at a man he recognized as he moved. "See the door over there? It leads to a debating chamber for the Confederation of Wizards. Which I am part of, by the way. Our primary directive is to ensure the survival of wizardkind. Keep the order with the muggles. Protect our kind. Ensure the peace. Now, that does sound impressive, doesn't it?"

Hermione squinted her eyes. "Really impressive. But why are you telling me this?" He really was an odd man. No adult had ever taken the time to explain to her anything, except at school.

Her father stopped short and turned to face her, his head bent with an eyebrow raised. "Why wouldn't I be? There is such a thing as a father's duty, or did muggles throw duty away, too?" he said contemptuously. "That's the least I can do for my precious daughter. And it's your duty to learn, dear. Even if you don't want to." Before Hermione could object, he turned around and went on walking. "We often have to do things we don't want to. It is a part of being responsible, Hermione."

She stared at his back. _Precious daughter,_ she mouthed silently, shaking her head in bewilderment.

They threaded their way to a partly opened door. A stern-faced man wearing russet robes was standing there, visually examining them.

"Bartemius. How do you do?"

"Mr Bourbon. I didn't realize you were in town. Are you here on business?"

Hermione wished 'Bartemius' would stop looking at her like she was some sort of shady, exotic vegetable. He had short greyish hair with a neat parting and a silly toothbrush moustache, Hitler-style. Her father was about ten times more handsome.

"I did have some urgent business to attend to. But it's taken care of now. May I use your fire to floo home? I'd apparate, but well. . .I just don't fancy splinching myself."

"Of course," Bartemius said curtly. He stepped aside to let them enter the office and briskly walked away.

"Bartemius Crouch is the head of this department," Nathaniel said when he was gone. He walked past the tidy oak desk to the fireplace, picked up a beige pot, shoved his hand deep in for a moment before fishing out a fistful of glittering powder. "Come on here, dear. You'll be going first." He handed her the flowerpot and knelt to busy himself with the fireplace, his wand out. "Take some powder, will you. I just need to lift some enchantments," he told her before waving his wand about and murmuring incantations over and over.

Hermione observed the black powder in her palm. She turned her hand this way and that way. Black shimmered into emerald and black again.

"That should do it," said her father as he stood back up. "Off you go. Elbows tucked in, eyes shut, you throw the powder in here, step into the fire and say clearly 'Bourbon Estate'."

"Bourbon Estate?"

 _"Oui, voilà._ Go on, then."

"Wait!" Hermione's voice pitched higher in panic. "This—where does it lead?"  
"To Bourges. France. Home."

"Bo—I mean, are you sure? God, I wouldn't want to impose."

Her father looked at her with wonder. "It is your home! You would never be an imposition. And anyhow, you could live in the chateau for weeks without anyone even noticing your presence." He gently pushed her forward. "Go, now."  
Hermione took a fortifying breath, clamped her eyes shut and threw the powder. _"Bourbon Estate!"_

Again, a sensation of being sucked in an oversized vacuum cleaner rushed over her whole body. The world rocked crazily, she was spinning and spinning, the lick of the flames crackling and popping, blood pounding in her ears, her stomach churning. Determined not to throw up, she concentrated on counting off in her head.

It took a full minute until the violent trembling and loud racket died down. Hermione opened her eyes hesitantly, a hand to her dizzy head. She was standing in another stone fireplace. _I'd still take that over teleporting anytime_ , she thought as she unsteadily made her way out.

The green fire whipped again and her father appeared and stepped out like he used enchanted fireplaces everyday. He flashed her a winning grin, and said, "Welcome home! Welcome back, my dear."

At this, Hermione spun around to see where they had landed, exactly. Which was posher than anything she'd expected.

They stood in a vast living-room, comfortably appointed with silky damask divans, red velvet-upholstered armchairs and low glass tables. Some thirty people could fit easily in the seats, and a hundred more could stand along the red walls. Four floor-to-ceiling windows, hung with heavy gold curtains, gave a view over gardens so green and orderly they cut a straight line against the blue-grey morning sky.

Two marble statues of Greek goddesses stood on pedestals like guards on either side of the arched white doorway. The first statue was a serious-faced huntress wearing a short tunic, knee-length boots and a bow. The other was a beautiful woman wrapped in gauzy cloth and flowers and sporting a coquettish smile and _moving._ She was brushing her fingers through her long hair, and waved at Hermione when she caught her looking. The huntress gave a faintly contemptuous look, and as if in answer, the other statue rolled her eyes. With a shrewd glance in Hermione's direction, she mimicked the huntress' soldierlike military pose and stood at attention, adding an extra measure of gravity by lifting her hand, bending her elbow and snapping off a salute. Then she doubled over in silent laughter, pounding the wall with one white fist. Without a word, the huntress fitted an arrow on her bowstring and aimed at her.

Hermione slapped herself.

Both the huntress and her father looked at her with some concern. "Is there a problem?" Before she could answer, there was a small crashing sound. "That'll be an owl," he said carelessly, and went to open the window. "Or a horse, perhaps. We have a newborn foal. . .Truly adorable, he's learning to fly. . ."

Hermione had so many questions. A flash of light caught her attention out of the corner of her eye and she looked down. Glittering gold veins appeared and disappeared like lightning strikes across the white marble floor.

She was bending to inspect it just as Nathaniel sat in an armchair with the newspaper. He gave her curious looks. "I keep forgetting how little you know. I suppose it must all seem very odd to you. This is a far cry from a muggle household."

Hermione shrugged, as if she visited magical chateaux everyday.

"You must be tired, after our journey and such an exciting week, _non?_ Would you like a cold drink, perhaps? Or some sleep?"

"I could use a nap."

"Of course. I'll call a maid to show you to your room."

A maid. Hermione nodded, blank-faced. Nathaniel Bourbon wasn't just rich, he was in that echelon of crazy rich she couldn't imagine. The people living there probably never looked at a price tag. She needed to sit. There was too much to take in at once, too much gold, too much red. She was making her way to an armchair, when the funniest feeling came to her. Her head jerked around, turning from side to side, as if searching for something to warn her of an attack. Her fingers twitched involuntarily.

There was _something_ coming.

The nervous feeling tingled through her like electrical sparks on the way to the ground, gathering in her toes as if to pull her forward just like a magnet. She started toward the arched doorway, where she could see a glimpse of what looked like another living-room. "Hermione? Where are you going?" She heard her father's concerned voice but she couldn't stop walking even if she tried. Her head had become a little giddy, her stomach nauseous. She walked through the archway, and before she could take in the backdrop of soft dove-greys and mirror-lined walls, her brown eyes met startled green ones and light faded into blackness as she collapsed.

. . .

Hermione half-opened her eyes, a blurred shadow passing in front of her. Groaning at the throbbing in her head, she was barely aware the shape had stopped and hovered over her.

"You're awake. Shall I help you?"

Slowly, she shook her head and sat up. She was in an unfamiliar bedroom, in a cozy bed smelling vaguely of fresh laundry and mint leaves. The mattress was so plush, it felt like being swallowed by a cloud.

Nathaniel, her father, was sitting next to the bed, and he looked dead worried. "How do you feel? Goodness, you gave me such a fright," he said, and Hermione was wrapped in a warm blanket of caring. "Antoine nearly fainted too when he saw both of you on the floor! Poor fellow, I should give him a pay rise. I have a good idea of what happened but perhaps I should call a healer—"

 _Both of you?_

Sharply, Hermione turned her head from side to side. And then she saw it.

A hand, resting on the bed.

She moved her eyes up, incredulously. The hand belonged to a tanned arm. Which belonged to a boy about her age. Who was lounging in a white armchair on her other side, his fingers drumming impatiently. He had messy dark blond hair in a ponytail, flashing green eyes, and checkered pyjamas.

All right. Who the _hell_ was that?

The boy jutted his chin out. "I am Lucas," he said, as if he'd read her thoughts. "Lucas Bourbon."

Hermione's mind went blank, then exploded. Bourbon. . .? A relative? Her eyes flicked madly from the pretty, sullen boy besides her. . .to her thirty-four-year-old blond father. . .and then back again to the boy.

Her father seemed amused by the scene. "She doesn't seem really happy to meet you, Lucas. It is the haircut, I think."

Lucas let out a string of what sounded like angry French cussing.

"Enough of that. Do not raise your voice to me. It's vulgar. And sit up straight in that chair."

They started bickering in French, and Hermione found herself eying the boy more closely. He sat with one leg crossed over the other, jiggling one free dragon-slipper-clad foot. Unruly locks of hair fell in his eyes as he spoke energetically. He was tanned like he'd spent the whole summer playing outdoors. He looked like Nathaniel. He looked like _her._

There had to be a logical explanation.

"Who is this? And why did we both pass out? At the same time?"

Her father gave her a meaningful look. "Magic twins' bond, my dear. I told you, _non?_ Ah, I guess I forgot. You and Lucas are twins, bonded since birth, and when you—literally—ran into each other, _boom,_ it just sort of _poof,"_ he made an explosive motion with his hands, "accidental magic."

Hermione nodded. She didn't stop nodding. She was pretty sure if she stopped nodding, common sense would kick in, and she'd scream her head off. Twins. She had a twin brother. _I've got a twin and his name is Lucas_ , she thought to herself in amazement.

 _She was someone's twin._

"We don't look like twins," she heard Lucas mutter. He didn't look thrilled to meet her, that's for sure.

"You're fraternal." Her father stood up and stretched his long limbs. "Well. You need to rest. No more questions, no getting up, and certainly no jumping out of the windows—I'm talking to you, son. We'll sort out what's need to be done later." He looked at the pair of them and beamed—a warm, genuine smile that reached his brown eyes, making them crinkle at the corners. "I'll leave now, children. I'm sure you have so much to tell each other."

The white double-doors closed behind him with a soft _thud._

Immediately Hermione's eyes were drawn to Lucas, who was fidgeting madly. He swung himself off his chair as though he couldn't bear to sit still. Then he paced up and down, only adding another piece of chaos to the bedroom. It was vast, size of a classroom, and lovely in white and sky-blue tones—but it was a _mess._ As if someone had placed sticks of dynamite in drawers and blew them open, glossy magazines and clothes sprawled dead on the floor, others lay wounded midway, clinging to the delicate white furniture. No one was talking yet the place reverberated with a cacophony of magical sounds. Fiery phoenixes soared over the blue walls and painted clouds with screeches of joy; in the corner near the paper-swamped desk paintbrushes fluttered and stirred in their pots; wizards all wearing navy robes and riding broomsticks zoomed in and out of posters. And unless Hermione's ears were deceiving her, something was hammering against the wardrobe door.

"Is this your bedroom?"

Lucas startled so bad, he nearly tripped over a book. _"Oui—I_ mean, yes. Why?"

"I think there's somebody in your closet."

His answer was a magazine sent flying toward the door and an angry shout in French. The door rattled one last time and the pounding stopped. Lucas went back to his pacing.

Hermione stared at him, nestled in the fluffy bed, until she couldn't take it anymore. She pushed back the bedcovers—white satin embroidered with blue roses and silver vines—and sat up on her knees. "So, we're kind of twins." She laughed nervously when he turned to her. "Odd, isn't it? I mean, we're practically strangers. I was adopted, did you know? Nobody where I lived was magic at all. Oh, wait, maybe I should—to make it official—" She stuck out her hand. "Nice to meet you."

Lucas shook it, but then looked as if he wanted to swim in a vat of hand sanitizer. "Yes, very strange," he said loftily.

"Father is telling me your name is Hermione?"

He pronounced it _'Er-mee-on._

"I know I'm supposed to be called Louise but I'd rather keep my own name. Hermione is Greek anyway so I don't think it makes that much difference. Since my middle name is Sirona and all—old French goddess, isn't she? I looked it up. And by the way, that's how you pronounce it, _Her-my-own-ee._ " She beamed. "I bet you have a Celtic middle name too!"

He nodded cautiously, as if placating a lunatic. "Yes. Virotutis. It's Gaulish."

"Really? That's another name for the Greek god Apollo—who's Hermes's brother. Now that's a funny coincidence. Oh! I forgot to ask. It's only the two of us, right? I mean, if we have another sibling named Zeus, well, I would like to know—"

"Don't be ridiculous," Lucas cut her off tartly, "there is no one else."

Hermione's smile slipped. "Well, I don't really know anything about this place. Mind you, I didn't even know you people existed."

He shrugged, as though to say, _What do I care?_ then started pacing again.

It was grating on her nerves.

"Do you have to pee or something?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Do you have to take a piss?"

Lucas regarded her, baffled. "Take. . .?"

"Take a piss. Pee-pee. Make water."

Now he looked repulsed. But at least he was paying her attention. "I like to pace when I'm thinking," he snapped.

"All you're going to do is wear out the floor if you keep that up. How come you speak English so well?"

"Almost everyone I know speaks English."

"Oh. Do you speak a lot of languages?"

"Not that many. French obviously, English, Spanish, German, and some Italian, though that involves guesswork."

"You. . .think that's not many?"

"All those languages are spoken around us daily. To not know them would be discourteous." He puffed out his cheeks and scowled. "That's what Father claims, anyway. He seems to think I need to learn Latin and classical Greek too. Can't think why."

Hermione felt more stupid by the minute, something she wasn't used to. She tried to quell her jealousy best she could. "You're so lucky. I don't know any foreign languages. Or spells, for that matter, I don't know anything about the wizard world. But um, our father said there were tons of books here, so. . ."

Lucas was eying her with some fascination. "You are not really serious, yes?"

"Why would I lie?"

He went to stand in front of her, hands balled into fists at his sides, shoulders bunched up. "Because you _are_ a liar," he said scathingly. "You're certainly not my sister. I'm not sure you're a witch, even. Why are you here, muggle? What do you want from us? Money?"

Hermione felt such a surge of indignation, two embroidered pillows flew and arced in the air. Direct hit. Struck his infuriating face before falling at his feet.

"How is that for a muggle?"

"Okay. So you're a witch. Congratulations." Lucas's tone was derisive, but she could see an insecure flash in his eyes. He looked down at the pillows, hair falling over his face. Hermione had a pang of guilt, and was about to apologize when he yawned elaborately, stretching his arms above his head, and muttering, "This is so stupid. I don't need a sister."

She felt like slapping him. But someone had to act mature here, her conscience jabbed at her. He was family. Her _twin._ "Honestly. . . You can drop the act." She tried to sound sisterly. "Why wouldn't you want a sibling? It's so lonely being an only child. Oh, it's wonderful we can be a family again. Just like a movie, right? Or a book!"

"I don't think any of this is wonderful," Lucas said, surveying her jeans, "I think you're rather ordinary. And your haircut's atrocious."

She glared at him furiously. "You're a rubbish twin brother!"

"I'm not your twin brother!" he shot back.

"Are too!"

"I can't be!"

"Why the hell not?"

"Because it's just too good to be true!" Lucas shut his mouth and winced, as if he couldn't believe what he'd just said. "I mean to say, we all know that things like that don't happen in real life," he said with a shrug. "Miracles and goodness just don't happen out of nowhere. This is preposterous."

"That's rich coming from a wizard," said Hermione heatedly. "And there have been stranger things in history. Crazier things, even. Don't you read? You're French, aren't you, what about Joan of Arc? She heard these angels' voices telling her to go fight for her country, and she went, and no one in the army told her it was preposterous, right? No one said, 'You know what, Joan, that's rubbish.' They rolled with it, and she made it! Because that's what you do sometimes. You can make your own miracles. Life is unpredictable! No one knows what's going to happen next!"

She felt quite stirred up after this tirade, but Lucas was peering at her as though she was an imbecile.

"Joan of Arc," he said, "was executed."

Hermione glared at him resentfully. Some people were just so negative.

"And what angels are you talking about?" he went on disparagingly. "It was a Seer who made the prophecy about Joan."

"A what?"

"A Seer, someone who can see into the future. Don't you know anything?"

He sounded so pitying, she felt a bit piqued. "Well I don't think they teach us the same things in muggle schools!"

"How would I know what they teach muggles?" Lucas appeared offended at the very idea. "I'm busy enough with my tutor and preparatory school."

Hermione's irritation faded. "So you got the letter too?" she asked, grudgingly curious. "The one from the magical school."

"Of course I got it! And Father's bought me all the books and a telescope and a new cauldron already. . .There's no way I'm not bringing my broom, though. I heard the school brooms start vibrating if you fly too fast, can you imagine?"

"You know how to fly on a broom?"

Lucas made a sound halfway between a sigh and a snort. _"Pfuit!_ I'll have you know, Aunt Ariel says I'm a natural."

"And do you have a wand yet? It was on the list—"

He produced a wand from his pocket. "Beautiful, isn't it? Ebony wood and dragon heartstring. I've had it for years."

Even Hermione, who knew nothing about wands, thought it looked beautiful. Sleek and shiny, made of deep black wood, it had carved swirls running along its length and a twisted, dark handle. She stared enviously as Lucas twirled it between his fingers and it emitted a number of green and gold sparks.

"You don't realize your luck. You must have tried dozens of spells already—you'll have a good head start, while I'll be miles behind everyone else at Hogwarts."

"Oh, _come on_ ," he replied, grinning a little. "Lots of wizards and witches come from muggle families and they have never even heard of magic until they go to school. And what is that nonsense about Hogwarts, anyway? Bourbons go to Beauxbatons."

"So now I'm a Bourbon? Funny that. I thought I was a lying muggle."

Lucas blinked thrice and _literally_ jumped back away from her. He looked furious with himself, then with her. "You're not," he forced out. "You can go to Hogwarts for all I care."

Oh, so he didn't want to be her twin, Hermione thought coolly. Well, too bad. He was. She noticed the silvery chain around his neck and reached under her shirt, pulling out her own locket. He narrowed his eyes. "Nothing special," she said, clicking it open, "just something I've had since I was a baby. See inside? There's a picture of my parents and—oh, a name. Bourbon. Now, where have I heard that name before?"

Lucas's hand flew under his pyjama shirt and he gaped at her. Then his expression grew hard. "You have some nerve. Just go back to your muggles," he said, eyes flashing, then he turned and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.


	4. 4

**_4_**

Lucas Bourbon was committing suicide.

 _Who wants to live in a world where your twin sister is a punk?_

A punk, that was what his father'd brought home. Anyone could tell Hermione had no education. Last week she asked for sweatpants.

What was next, handcuffs and drugs?

Lucas was going to kill himself, he was thinking poison maybe. When they found his body, it would be slumped over a suicide letter. His godmother will scan it and nod. His father will take it to bed and read a little each night with a glass of wine, massaging his temples, and hopefully reconsidering his behaviour.

Lord Nathaniel Bourbon was a perfectly respectable wizard, all clean lines and sharp edges.

So why was he acting like a madman?

And it wasn't just him. When Apolline Delacour heard the 'good news' she'd shrieked, laughed and cried, smoked four gauloises in rapid succession, and broke her champagne glass.

Lucas's godmother was less dramatic. " _Good. I'll swing by_ ," Ariel's one-line letter announced as if it were no big deal. The German duelist never did anything—talk, read, kill someone, eat pasta—without cool efficiency. Lucas painfully idolized her.

That might change if she _oohed_ and _aahed_ over Hermione like the rest of the world.

At least his best friend wasn't buying it. "Mate, you cannot be serious," he'd said, snorting with laughter. "She's practically a mudblood. How is your father going to introduce her without embarrassing himself?"

Some deep part of Lucas wanted to snap, "Stop being a jerk!" But the other part of him was dying to grab Blaise by the shoulders and give him an _oh-God-I-know!_ shake, because that wasn't that far from the truth.

Lucas threw himself morosely onto his bed. Sierra flew from her cage and kneaded her beak into his pyjama top. "Good girl," he said, closing his eyes and burrowing his head into the owl's soft fur. Maybe if he stayed like that long enough, everyone would forget about him and he wouldn't have to go on being Lucas Bourbon, living his increasingly stupid life.

Finally, and because he wasn't a loser, he let go of Sierra and sat up. He grabbed his palette of oils and a white canvas. When the emotion in his heart and the image in his mind were perfectly aligned, he went to work. His wet brush flew over with quick, decisive strokes. Swirls of crimson. Bold slashes of indigo. He prodded the canvas with his wand, getting the paint to move, feeling himself relax.

There was a knock, and the double doors swung open. "Good morning," Hermione said.

Lucas stared. Something about the way she tossed her head, slightly defiantly, right before she came in, gave him a flicker of déjà vu. And in that instant, he got it.

She honestly did look like him.

"I made an apple pie," Hermione brazened through the awkward silence. "Do you want some?"

"No," Lucas said coolly. He wasn't eating anything that was cooked by her. Who knew what disease she'd brought back from Loserville?  
Her eyes roamed to his canvas. "Oh, you're painting," she said, nose scrunched up. "I love how it just. . .flickers. But how come you made the sky red?"

"I was in a red mood."

Hermione nodded slowly. "I know it must be odd for you with me moving in all of a sudden, and the twin thing, and Na—Dad saying you wouldn't go to prep school this year since I'm here. So, I'm sorry."

Lucas wished she'd get lost.

"I was just speaking with the butler, getting to know the chateau. He seems happy with the whole thing. Claire and Pauline too—the maids. I like them. And I'm getting my wand this week."

He blinked. Did she actually think they were friends?

"Um, while I was in the kitchen, I mentioned I love meat, so the chef said we're having pork for lunch. Hope that's okay." Hermione backed away, waited for a moment for him to respond. When he didn't, she smiled ruefully and closed the doors.

Lucas hugged a pillow. Of course she loved meat. It was so plebeian. He wished he had some raw pork chops to throw in her face.

What? Did everyone expect him to give this supposed sister a warm welcome just because she looked like him, lived in the chateau, baked pies and hung out with maids and majordomos? _At least soon I'll be at Beauxbatons and away from this freak show_ , he thought before standing and exchanging his pyjamas for robes. "Lolly," he called aloud.

There was a _crack._ The house-elf appeared in front of him, already mid-bowing.

"Have you seen my father?"

"Lord Bourbon has gone riding in the gardens, sir."

"Okay," said Lucas distractedly as he slipped his loafers on. "I thought there was a brunch at the Louvre today." His father was on the boards of all the big charities and organizations in the city and always had boring fundraisers to go to.

Lolly's big violet eyes shone with excitement. "Lord Bourbon has put all his meetings on hold, sir!" She squealed and clasped her hands. "He says he'll spend time with his family. . .Oh, Lord Bourbon is such a good wizard. . ."

Ew. "Even the trip to Japan?"

"The master says his daughter is more important than Japan."

Seriously _ew._ "You can go," Lucas told the elf, who bowed and disapparated. He leaned on the door and considered his options.

Option One: Stay in his room like he'd done these last two weeks. Probable result: Extreme boredom.

Option Two: Grit his teeth and spend the day with his family. Probable result: Death after painful torture.

These were not looking good, which led him to his final option—leave this dump. Maybe forever.

The more he thought about it, the more he liked the sound of it. He crossed to his wardrobe and crammed a set of robes, underwear, pyjamas and magazines into a duffel-bag and checked the time. Ten o'clock. There shouldn't be anyone near his room but still, he was careful all the way to the east wing, throwing glances over his shoulder as he tiptoed across polished marble floors through six arched doorways to the seventh, which opened into the red drawing-room. He put his finger to his lips and shushed the enchanted statues of Diana and Venus as he strode past them to the fireplace. Both stopped arguing long enough to see what he was up to.

Lucas reached out to grab some floo powder, then hesitated. It occurred to him that his plan was risky. Was he really going to sneak out without even leaving a note? There'd be hell to pay.

His father wasn't very rigid in the discipline department unless it was about something like security, family, or education. Lucas was rarely grounded, and when it happened, he was just lectured or sent to his room—which was weird because his grandfather used to punish his father when he was a little boy by locking him in the chateau's dungeon. You'd think he would've turned stricter.

But if Lucas left home without asking for permission, he'd be in for the grounding of a lifetime, possibly in the dungeon. There were kids who told their parents they were going over to their friend's, and instead they went out, and their parents never found out because they didn't check with the friend's parents. His father was never irresponsible like that. First, Lucas wasn't allowed to sleep over at anyone's house except for Blaise and the Delacours—and even then he had to ask for permission. So deep inside he knew it was very wrong to run off and make his dad worry.

Angry with himself, he flung his bag down and moved around the room, searching for something to occupy his hands. He spotted the mail on a table and sifted through it. Mostly invitations, to balls, benefit dinners, fundraisers, auctions, art openings, newspapers, scholarly publications. . .

Then there was Hermione's fan mail.

Since his father had tipped off the press—to amuse himself, Lucas suspected—their family life had been the hottest story in every tabloid and gossip column. Journalists had a field day as they concocted screaming headlines like, " _Long Lost Heiress Found!_ " or _"Louise Bourbon Comes Back To Life!"_. French wizards had reacted in a bizarre fashion, owling congratulatory baskets of flowers and chocolates, letters of support, with the two odd howlers, one cursed letter, and a hippogriff plushie.

"Idiots," Lucas muttered as he tossed the letters aside, snagged his things from the floor and stomped to the fire.

. . .

As usual, the Delacour household was alive with activity when Lucas jumped out of the fireplace, dance music pouring out along the hallway. The wireless was a staple in their home, as sacred as the collection of silver-framed photos on the mantelpiece—baby pictures, a snap of the whole family at a park somewhere sunny, one of Mr Delacour looking surprised in his Ministry robes, and Lucas's personal favourite, the one taken on the Delacours' wedding day.

A brown-haired woman waved up at him from the photo and he grinned goofily. His mother'd passed away when he was a baby, but he'd heard so many stories about her, saw so many pictures, that he felt he'd actually known her.

"Is it you, Fleur?" a breathy voice called over the music.

"It's Lucas!"

Lucas set down the frame and went to the living-room, where, dressed from head to toes in a hot-pink leotard, white tights and purple leg-warmers, Apolline Delacour was doing aerobics, huffing and puffing to _Melissande Montfaucon's Morning Workout_. It was really not a good look for anyone but the veela pulled it off. Following step for step right next to her was her daughter Gabrielle. She was four going on twenty-four, with hair so silvery and a vocabulary so sophisticated, it would often stop strangers in the street.

 _"Work those glutes, ladies!"_ Melissande sang out from the wireless.

"Lucas, sweetie," Apolline greeted between leg extensions. "Spending the night, are you? Don't you have a kiss for me?"

While Lucas dutifully obliged, a yawning Matthias Delacour walked in the living-room, in his favourite Sunday attire: fluffy dressing-gown. He patted his daughter's blond bob and smiled sleepily.

"Good morning, Gaby."

"Morning, Matthias."

"What did we say about this?"

"Morning, Daddy!"

He turned to Lucas. "How's it going, Lucas? I see you're alone, why didn't bring that sister of yours? I'm dying to meet her, myself."

"Yes, where is Hermione, honey?" his wife chimed in. "Oooh, you must be so happy!"

It's frightening, Lucas thought, how clueless old people can be. "She's busy at home. You'll see her soon, anyway. Fleur's here, isn't she? Or is the teachers' strike already over?"

Fleur Delacour was in her fourth year at Beauxbatons, basically an adult in his eyes, and the coolest girl he knew. She performed death-defying feats daily, like telling her parents to 'shut up' or 'take a chill pill'.

"She's not home? Where'd she go?" said Matthias, perplexed. "Gabby, where's your sister?"

Not even in prep school yet, Gabrielle had already mastered the art of getting people in trouble. Next to chasing gnomes and spelling out h-i-p-p-o-c-a-m-p-u-s for a sickle, it might be her favourite pastime. "She's at Lancelot's with her friends. She didn't clean her room."

"The Tesson boy? I don't trust that kid."

"You don't trust any boy who is friend with our daughter, honey," Apolline said matter-of-factly.

Matthias grumbled. "She's flying back to school tomorrow, you'd think she'd want to spend more time with us. I'm calling her." He patted Lucas's head as he walked past. "Since you're here, I better tell my nephew to come over. . .He always complains when I don't. . ."

Lucas felt like a puppy being scratched behind the ears. Why did he always have such a good time when he was at the Delacours'?

It wasn't like they had things he didn't have. They lived in a four-bedroom house, didn't have maids or house-elves, and their idea of extravagance was pizzas on Friday night. And while the Bourbons lived in the countryside—no neighbours, no car noises, no polluted air—the Delacours lived in the city. Wizarding Paris, a maze of cobblestoned, crowded streets that jazzed up with colourful umbrellas on rainy days, trendy underground shopping alleys typically associated with wild nightlife, and tile-panelled passageways sheltered under glass roofs where people like the Delacours lived. Their passageway stretched alive with rowdy children playing out, music and cigarette smoke drifting out of open windows, balconies groaning under the weight of potted plants and jars of herb mixes, and bothersome neighbours like that elderly potioneer who once turned bright orange because of an experiment gone wrong or that punk muggleborn with the mohawk and motorcycle. Every morning as he kicked the starter it spluttered, wheezed, coughed, before settling into a persistent purr.

Lucas couldn't fathom why would anyone live in such a noisy place. Still, every time he spent the night, even if all he did was eat macaroons in the kitchen with Apolline or play loser games with Gabrielle, he had such a great time. Maybe because it was so funny to watch Matthias being bossed around by the four-year-old. Or that Eric, Matthias's nephew, always flooed over to keep him company and together they followed Quidditch games on the wireless. Or maybe because the Delacours only talked about normal stuff, their most serious debate being, _Should we get a pet kneazle or would it be too much of a hassle?_ They never discussed obscure arithmancy theories far beyond anyone's comprehension or the latest legislative proposal regarding unauthorised beasts trafficking, both perfectly suitable topics of discussion around the Bourbons' dinner table.

Lucas wished his dad could be less of a nerd. It wasn't that he didn't love him, because he did, but why couldn't he be laid-back like Fleur's dad who always walked around in pyjamas and woke up his daughters every morning with animal growls?

Mr Delacour would never wear a suit at seven in the morning and leave for London on a whim. He would never bring a savage girl in his home the day after.

His father was usually so intelligent. How could he have let something like that happen? Lucas just didn't understand it.

He wanted to forget it, actually. That was why he'd come to the Delacours'. While he was here he didn't have to think about boring arithmancy or how his sister was a punk. He could just relax and enjoy Apolline's homemade crème brûlée and watch Gabrielle and Eric try to spy on Fleur's floo chats.

As expected today was totally fun. Eric did, in fact, come over. Lucas tackled him when he stepped out of the fireplace and together they rolled around, laughing.

Eric Delacour had been his friend since he ended up having the extraordinarily good luck to sit next to Lucas when they started prep school. He'd been such a loser—still was, really. Chubby with a brown bowl cut and cheap clothes and a tendency to trip over his own feet like a duckling. Lucas couldn't help harassing him in every way, and apparently Eric'd grown fond of the harassment since he was always following him around.

When they got tired of wrestling they sat on the front door steps, people-watching in the glass-covered passageway until Fleur came home in the afternoon and ushered them in for snack time.

"Let's get down to business," she said without preamble. "Any news on the Christmas front?"

Lucas nodded while sipping his hot chocolate. Eric leaned forward, cauldron cake in hand. Gabrielle looked at them attentively, sucking on her liquorice wand. They all knew the drill. Approaching December, it was their ritual to systematically divulge Christmas gift secrets. Figuring out what your parents were giving you for Christmas was hard, but figuring out what your parents were giving other children was doable. They were a well-orchestrated unit of little spies all working together, gathering information and intelligence in Paris.

"I saw that my father bought you concert tickets," Lucas divulged to Fleur.

"What band was it?"

"I think it started with a S. The maid came in the room before I could get a good look."

Fleur tossed back her shiny hair. "Spellbound? They're so hot."

"No, that's not it."

"Sept Fantômes? They are so hot."

"No, it wasn't them."

"The Slimeballs?" Eric gushed in a nasal voice. "They're so hot."

"Shut up, idiot. Was it SoC, Lucas? So Cursed?"

"Yep. That's it. So Cursed."

"Oh Morgana, yes! They're the hottest."

From there they went around the table, revealing the contents of every package that had been carefully wrapped. It wasn't too hard for Lucas to figure out what he was getting. All the Delacours were pretty predictable. Fleur's parents had known him since he was a baby so their gifts were always very practical. This year was no exception.

"My father is getting you a book on owl care," said Fleur. "He thought you might need one."

"Great."

"And Maman got you a cloak."

"Ha ha!" Gabrielle laughed in his face. "Books and clothes!"

Then there was Eric's weird father and his muggle mother. Their gifts were always bizarre, items that no child in his right mind would ever want.

"My mum got you a birdhouse from New York," said Eric.

"Right, I saw it," Fleur nodded. "It's very ornate, by a very famous American artist."

"Yeah," Eric said. "It sucks ass."

"Maman!" Gabrielle yelled. "Eric is swearing at the table!"

 _"Don't make me come in there!"_

When they were done with their snacks, Fleur went to do whatever girls did in their bedroom while Lucas and Eric stretched belly-down on the carpet, flipping through the latest issues of _Seeker Weekly._ They were discussing racing broomsticks when Matthias plopped down on the white-leather sofa with a glass of Perrier.

"So what do you kids do these days besides reading books?"

"They're magazines, Mr Delacour," Lucas corrected. "We've been busy following the World Cup. Next week is the final game. Scotland versus Canada."

"You know, when I was growing up we didn't stay home, playing outdoors was the best thing we could do. We'd be ice-skating outside all winter. The Seesyle Park downtown would be jam-packed with people, the music loud. When's the last time you boys played outside?"

"Since this summer at mine, Mr Delacour."

"Maybe you kids should be playing outside a bit more."

Eric groaned. "It's bad enough we've got prep school on Mondays and Thursdays. It's too cold to be out, Uncle."

"Too cold? If it was up to me I'd make you fly your brooms to the park. Too cold. . .I'll give you too cold."

Matthias Delacour was always "giving" his nephew Eric things. _I'll give you sorry._ Or, _I'll give you not hungry_. How can you give him 'not hungry'? Lucas once asked him. He was not amused.

"It's fresh air out there!" he continued. "Your dad would say the same thing, Eric. Lucas, yours too. You children don't know what you're missing."

As the two boys rolled eyes at each other and mimicked exaggerated shivers, Fleur came in, looking annoyed. She said Lucas's father had called the fireplace, and he'd been trying to get through for hours, only she was talking to her friend so he kept getting a busy signal. "Didn't you tell him you were sleeping over?" she asked testily. "He's angry and says he wants you to floo home immediately. What did you do again?"

Lucas must have looked like he was going to throw up, because Fleur smoothly added, "Bah, don't worry about it. I'll call him back to say you already went to bed."

"What's all this about?" Matthias cut in. "You really did get permission from your father to stay over, didn't you?"

Lucas was saved from answering by Gabrielle bursting into the living-room, holding a can with the tips of her fingers like it was something gross she had found. "Why did you buy beer, Daddy? D'you know how much candy we coulda get with that money?"

While Matthias lectured his daughter about not touching grownup drinks, Lucas worried about what _his_ father would do to him when he went home. In the morning, after Eric flooed to prep school and Fleur left for Beauxbatons, he tried to hang out at the Delacours' as long as possible. He helped Apolline wash the breakfast dishes. He ran after Matthias who'd forgotten to stuff a paper in his briefcase. He chatted with Gabrielle even though it was irritating because she changed topics six times per sentence and stopped talking mid-conversation to go eat cheese.

When the four-year-old gave him a sort of pitying look, and said, "You haven't got any friends, do ya?" Lucas decided it was time to go home.

. . .

The kitchen was Hermione's favourite new spot.

Glass cabinets lined white walls above black granite countertops. Black cauldrons of all sizes hung from an iron rack over a marble-topped island. There were massive stainless sinks, shining butcher block counters, steel restaurant stoves, and three big refrigerators. Everything was either black or white. The only splash of colour came from the half-open door to the walk-in pantry, where rows of glass shelves overflowed with food and labeled mason jars filled with all sorts of oddities—powdered spices, dried herbs, essential oils, quartz pebbles in all shades, leaves soaking in liquids, giant eggs and dried insects and bloody animal organs and small bones. . .

Hermione steered clear of the pantry, and went on a quest for food. She was so busy poking into fridges that she barely noticed someone coming in. Until she turned around and almost bumped into the chef, who'd walked out of the pantry. A small man with a moustache, he was decked out in white slacks, white apron, chief's hat and red scarf around his neck—and appeared on the verge of tears.

"Mademoiselle," he said tragically, holding onto an empty bag of _Self-Charmed Flour._ "Zere is no more bread."

"That's all right," said Hermione, showing him the waffles she'd found on the center island. "Don't mind me, really. I'm just making myself a little breakfast."

She returned to her fridge-inspection. Grabbed some cold cuts, a couple pickle slices, two waffles which she smushed into a sandwich.

And turned around to find the cook struck dumb in horror.

"You. . .you cannot eat zat," he whispered, obviously appalled.

She looked at him funnily. "Of course I can. Just wait." She grabbed the mayo and slathered up one of the still-hot waffles. It melted nicely into all the cracks, but the creation still needed something. She had an inspiration and stuck her head back in the fridge before turning back to her sandwich—only to find that it wasn't there anymore.

Maybe because it had been _stolen._

"It's mine!" Hermione angrily told the chef, who was holding it firmly against his chest with a determined look. "If you want one just ask!"

"What is zat?" he demanded, pointing at her hands.

Hermione held up the square of little slices and pointed at the bold-faced label, _'American Processed Cheese'._

The chef looked baffled. Then angered. "Oh la la, Master Lucas again. I say to him I will make him real cheese but he does not listen. He buys zis. . .thing from the city. Orange cheese. Ridiculous!"

"A lot of cheese is orange."

"Non! Cheese comes from zee milk, eet should be white." He snatched the package, without letting go of the sandwich. Hermione considered tackling him. "Eet says 'cheese food'. _What_ ees thees? Zee cheese, it does not eat."

"The idea is that _you_ eat it."

" _Non, non, non!"_ He was emphatic. "Lord Bourbon, 'ee would never forgive me—you cannot eat zees filth! _C'est une aberration!_ "

"You haven't even tried it! And anyway, there's nothing else—"

"Nossing?" The chef gestured around expansively at the rows of black cabinets and the walk-in pantry and the fridges. "Zere is everything! You will not eat that!"

"Pâté. Frog legs. Bloody caviar."

Hermione made a grab for the food, but the bloke was faster than he looked. He dodged around the island. She dodged after him.

"And what ees wrong with the caviar?"

"What is wrong? You take a fish, rip off its eggs and call it cuisine?"

The little chef drew himself up. "You lived with the crazy in England," he accused. "Caviar is food. But _zat_ ees not food. Zat ees not even—"

Hermione snatched the sandwich back. It was a little smushed, but it was okay. She took a defiant bite.

"Please." He looked desperate. "I beg of you, Mademoiselle. Do not eat zat. I weel make you something better."

"Oh, God, all right. What?"

"Anything! Do you like _les oeufs?_ I weel make _une omelette!_ Such an omelet I weel make for you!" He waved the hand with the despised cheese in it. "As has nevair been seen. It shall be an omelet of the gods!"

Ten minutes later, Hermione sat down and took a bite of omelet. Her eyes bugged out.

"It is good, no?" the chef asked, looking smug.

"How do you do this with just eggs?" she asked, stuffing her face.

"Oh, zere are other things, too," he said loftily. "Olive oil, tabasco, chives, onions, pepper—zust a touch, you understand. . .Next time, you ask me for food."

Hermione patted her omelet-full belly as she stepped out of the kitchen in the hallway. The stretchy waistband of her skirt came in handy. She brushed her hand against the suede fabric and smiled. Her new wardrobe was a marvel—a whole new fancy wardrobe, courtesy of her father. She swayed back and forth, the circle skirt swooshing through the air as she walked up the curved blue-carpeted staircase leading to the high hall.

Once up, Hermione tiptoed to the center and glanced around with amazement. The floors were beige marble streaked with bronze veins and matched the furniture siding the gracefully sweeping staircase—a tan brocade sofa paired with two wingback chairs and a low walnut table. To the sides of the foyer were two archways supported by marble columns that opened to a formal ballroom on the left and a cushy library with mahogany shelves and brown velvet window seats on the right.

A maid appeared through one of the archways, noticed Hermione standing there running her hand across the sofa, but didn't react except to dip a curtsy and hurry away.

 _Training,_ Hermione thought. _Years of expensive training._ Her new home was the kind of place that came with trained help, a three-storey mansion of beige-and-peach stone with two wings jutting forth in an u-shape and a courtyard nestled between them. The east wing was used solely for meals and socializing, with its seven living-rooms. But the west wing was domestic—there were bedrooms with their own dressing-rooms, bathrooms and balconies, and the master's suite at the far end. And all of this was on the first floor. Hermione hadn't been to the upper floors yet, but the butler'd told her there were other rooms, for guests or whatever.

She made her way up to her own bedroom. The double-doors swung inward at her approach. It was quite fancy, all decorated in off-whites and deep reds, with a four-poster bed and a red velvet canopy above it, a thick beige rug, cream walls setting off the polished cherry-red floor and matching cherry doors leading to the dressing-room and bathroom.

Hermione went to sit on the comfy red-and-cream striped armchair facing the balcony windows. Outside, rays of sun slanted across the gardens' green lawns and illuminated the Grecian temple in the middle of the lake. Hazy, grey clouds sailed across the sky, and abruptly they parted to reveal wings beating the air in powerful strokes as an abraxan horse flew over to hover just outside the glass. Sunlight glinted off his golden coat, contrasting with the dark skin on his muzzle and around his red eyes that were curiously peering into the window. Behind him, two more winged horses zipped free in the sky, tossing their heads and neighing in the distance.

Hermione didn't know if it was the same in every wizarding household, but there was nothing still here. Never-mind these wizard-bred animals outdoors, the hallways' fine art works were every bit as involved in day-to-day goings on, whether it was cheeky goddesses statues or talking mirrors or paintings of ancestors, like the one of Louis the Great posing in red-heeled shoes and silk stockings. Yes, the French king was apparently a relative, and despite the slight hindrance of being a painting, he kept everyone in the loop of his feelings on things—mostly how he felt that humanity will live to regret the loss of men's high-heeled shoes and monarchy.

Yesterday, when Hermione told him that she couldn't support monarchy and that all men were born free and equal, he said, "Ah, but if I were not king, I should lose my temper."

Though the most unusual about the chateau was definitely its habitants. The butler fussed over Hermione, straightened her robes and smoothed her hair; the chef sent up nutritious meals and was always hopefully awaiting outlandish requests so that he could rise up to whatever challenge she set, and her father—he doted on her. There wasn't a better word. Nathaniel spoiled her, listened to her, entertained her, and routinely surprised her by kissing her head or buying her books—which was just as well, since she had nothing but free time on her hands these days.

Hermione tried to remember the last time she had nothing to do in Rosalind's house. She wasn't sure she could. She'd never had nothing to do. She stared out the window, at the clouds marring the cornflower sky, relishing her situation. No one had any hold over her. No one could call her up and demand her presence.

This was _her_ home.

Smiling hugely, she stood, picked two books from her desk— _Hogwarts: A History_ and _999 French Verbs_ —and went to check if her father was back from his morning ride.

As she walked past Lucas's bedroom, she heard a loud thumping sound coming from inside. She frowned, remembering she hadn't seen her surly brother at lunch or dinner yesterday. Odd since they all took their meals together. Maybe he'd been so engrossed in a painting he'd forgotten to eat.

The pounding came again, accompanied by screeching.

Hermione knocked. "Lucas? Are you okay?"

No answer came, and she opened the doors slightly to snoop. The room was empty. She looked around, listening intently. The thumping was coming from one of the two white doors opposite the bed.

Hermione pushed it open and walked in—or tried to, before finding herself unceremoniously dumped on her butt. She got up, only to have the same thing happen, this time a heavy body latching on top of her. A scream escaped as she punched and struggled against the attacker who was trying to smother her. Finally she landed a well-aimed kick that sent the black shadow flying.

Hermione jumped to her feet, gasping, eyes wide.

Two things registered. First, she was in a dressing-room. Second, her attacker was a cloak. A long, black cloak trimmed with fur, lying horizontally, hovering a few inches off the ground where she'd kicked it.

She blinked as the cloak stood back up and shook itself, then marched toward her. Angrily. "You—stop it! Leave me alone!"

The cloak froze in place, then drooped in a heap on the floor.

Hermione threw it a last suspicious glance before walking deeper in the dressing-room—and bloody hell, what a room it was. The walls and ceiling were glossy mahogany, a red carpet covered the floor. There was a black leather couch with a tufted ottoman, and where there weren't clothes, there were mirrors. The shelves facing her lined with rows of boots, loafers, derbies, moccasins, and even muggle trainers. Nike, Reebok, Adidas. The walls were dedicated to hanging racks with different categories of clothing. Everything was colour coordinated and Lucas owned more coats, more robes, more pants and shirts than she'd ever seen. Ties and bowties, scarves, gloves, and hats. An _entire_ wall was dedicated to cloaks. Long, short, heavy and fur-trimmed, made of starched cotton or shiny silk, subdued dark tones or bright colours, plain or patterned with moving creatures. . .

Hermione was stunned. Quietly, she walked out and closed the door behind her, mulling this over. Her twin had a soft spot for fashion. Now that she thought about it, he was almost always dressed in a way that made him unique. What an odd boy.

A loud, echoing _crack_ broke the silence like a gunshot and she held up her fists in a fighting stance, ready for Round Two with the cloak. And indeed something had materialized out of thin air behind her—but it wasn't an item of clothing this time.

Hermione stared in open-mouthed shock at the newcomer. She'd never seen anything like it before, except perhaps in books. Blue-skinned, the creature resembled an elf, and was naked except for the large white apron tied around its body twice. Its head was covered by a little maid cap under which protruded flapping, bat-like ears.

"You—who are you?" Hermione demanded.

Big violet eyes looked up at her with adoration.

"What's with all the ruckus?" said an exasperated voice. "Some of us are trying to paint."

Lucas had come in the room, glowering at them both from the doorway.

 _Great,_ Hermione thought. _All we needed here._ She opened her mouth to explain but the creature flung herself into a low bow.

"Stand up," said Lucas impatiently. "Now, what is going on here?"

The blue elf started jabbering away in high-pitched, excited French.

Lucas listened boredly, nodded, replied something, then there was another cracking noise as the elf disappeared. "Did you need anything?" he asked, turning to Hermione.

She told him about the cloak, and he gave this long sigh before walking over to the wardrobe.

"That creature," Hermione said, following suit. "Was that one of your friends?"

Lucas looked at her as if she were insane. "Lolly is a house-elf," he said plainly, and returned to what he was doing, trying to fold the fur cloak which was wriggling under his hands like an energetic puppy. "It was made from a flying carpet," he explained, seeing the direction of Hermione's stare, "and tends to get temperamental when I don't wear it in a long time—stop _moving!_ I'm not wearing you today!"

The cloak shook furiously and spurted out of his hands, but he jumped on top of it and held on.

"Do you need help?"

"No," Lucas snapped, as the bucking-bronco ride he was being treated to careened him into the leather couch.

"All right," said Hermione dubiously. "So, what's a house-elf?"

"Melusine, you've been living here for two weeks. How can you be so ignorant?"

Hermione said nothing, watching as Lucas pulled open a drawer to reveal overflowing hair accessories and dug around until he found an elastic band. He tried to strap the cloak down, but somehow the thing seemed to know that, and went skittering out the door in the bedroom, jouncing Lucas as savagely as it could manage in the process.

"What's a house-elf?" Hermione persisted as she walked after them. "That creature came out of nowhere."

"House-elves serve wizarding families, like maids if you want, they clean, cook, run errands. . . We have two of them. Lolly—that you just saw—and Clensten. He's old."

"I see," said Hermione slowly. "By the way, where were you yesterday?"

"At the Delacours'. They're family friends, known them for ages."

Hermione sat in an armchair, reassured that Lucas wasn't going to bite her head off for anything. He seemed in a much more agreeable mood today than on any of the other occasions they had talked. Maybe because he was too busy. He was still struggling to get the hairband looped around the wild cloak, which was trying to throw him off its back.

"Are they wizards too?"

"Of course they are. Purebloods, though Apolline Delacour is half-veela. Her husband works at the Ministry. Their nephew's my friend—Eric."

"D'you have lots of friends?" Hermione asked as she looked around the bedroom, imagining what it must have been like growing up here. Seemed pretty lonely to her.

"There's Kayss Beaumont. I know him because Lord Beaumont went to school with Father, and now they're business associates. We go to prep school together, along with Eric. But I don't see them that much. I've got this other friend, Blaise—him, I see all the time."

The cloak rode by the desk and Lucas snagged several heavy volumes, and sure enough, the cloak's wild antics slowed down perceptibly. He shoved the books underneath him and grabbed two more. The cloak slowly started to settle toward the floor and Hermione thought he had it, but then it gave a huge heave and threw both the books and Lucas off.

The cloak flounced away, fur swinging smugly.

"Let me help you," Hermione offered, starting to rise, but Lucas waved her off.

"No, really. I'm fine." He stalked toward the cloak, green eyes flashing. "We were saying?"

The cloak suddenly reversed course and swept through his legs, knocking him to the floor again. Lucas rubbed the back of his head, muttering to himself in French.

Hermione smothered a laugh. "You were talking about your friends. . .Is that all?"

"All? Ah, you'd think I'd have dozens of friends, wouldn't you, but I like it that way." Lucas made an abrupt leap and threw himself on top of the cloak. Turning the thing upside down, he lashed it to the bedpost before it had a chance to try any more tricks. By the time he was done, it was trussed up in four hair ties, the sheet and several items from his wardrobe. "There! Now try to move, you stupid fool."

One of the cloak's sleeves waved about, giving the distinct impression that it was flipping him off.

"You can stay like that until you rot," Lucas told it. He dropped into the other white wingback chair, and looked back at Hermione. "Did you need anything else?"

Before she could answer, footsteps echoed down the corridor and a minute later their father towered in the doorway, blond hair sweaty, black breeches tucked in polished boots, a helmet under his arm. He noticed Lucas and his expression darkened. "Lucas! What in heaven's name were you thinking? Taking off like that without even a note, do you have any idea how worried I was?"

Lucas's eyes darted about like a cornered animal.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself? And it had better be good, son. Please explain what would make you go off, without any warning or planning. Have I not drilled into your head all the things that could happen to you?"

"I. . . Err, that is to say—"

"It's my fault," Hermione blurted out before she could think twice about it. "He told me he'll be sleeping over at the, uh, the Delacours' but I completely forgot to tell you. Sorry."

Lucas had a _what-the-hell_ expression on his face but her father's eyes softened fractionally. He stared at the two of them, then pushed a sweaty lock of hair off his forehead, sighing. "You're lucky this time," he said, clapping a hand on Lucas's shoulder and pulling him into a one-armed hug. "But don't do that again."

"You smell like horses," Lucas muttered, but he hugged him back.

"Hazards of horse-riding," their father replied dryly. He glanced over at Hermione. "Do you want to get your wand this afternoon, dear? We could go up to town for a few days. And buy you some new books, if you would like them."

"That would be great," Hermione said eagerly. "I'd really, really love to! Thank you!"

"Why don't you think about what you'd like to read and come up with a list? And clothes, too. We'll need to have you fitted for riding gear. There is no life in the countryside if you cannot ride. We shall leave after lunch, then."

"About lunch," Lucas jumped in, "Kayss's invited me over, so I'll—"

"No, I think not," Nathaniel answered coldly. "But if you don't care about spending time with your family, Lucas Virotutis, you can go and have lunch at McDonald's with the rest of the commoners."

And on that note, he strode out.


	5. 5

**_5_**

Ariel Ehrenfels stepped back slowly and stared at the vile pool of dark blood growing beneath the dying chimera's body. Thick reddish slime slid out from the stump of the neck in a slow gush, glistened on the fur and sprayed the ground where a clump of tangled bloody intestines lay spilled into the dirt.

The familiar haze wreathed Ariel's head, a cotton quality to the silence as if her ears were plugged from altitude. The smell of death and blood shot straight into her skull, harsh as chlorine, stinging as raw alcohol, crackling out like tree branches as it burned the veins in her brain. Her whole bloodstream turned to molten lava, her lungs exploded with air, her wrist bones ached. Her bowels shifted like a snake waking up, and for a second she thought her chest would actually crack open and some demon would burst out, shake her organs off its wings, crook its head at the idea of being stuck in this body, and fly into the sky to get straight back to hell.

And then as soon as she had that thought, the world blacked out before coming back into sharp focus, clearer than ever, along with a cacophony of senses rushing back: the roaring acclaim of the crowd, shouts and clapping, snatches of singing, the sand crunching beneath her boots, the salty, stinging sweat in her eyes, the blood trickling along her wounded leg and caking on her arms from where she'd buried them in the chimera's gut.

Despite the pain coming back too, Ariel felt more sated than she had in days. She shook the dizziness off and gazed across the arena. Oblong and vast, it stretched underground, sunken at the center of high walls with arched balconies arranged in rows. The seats always filled to capacity in winter. Spectators melded into a single entity, a loud, furious, excitable beast with a thousand throats, and above them all, a voice echoed, booming into every corner of the arena.

" _All the way from Germany, Ariel Ehrenfels, ladies and gentlemen!_ " the magically magnified voice announced. " _Now there's something we've never seen before. . .Battling a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall nightmare wandlessly! Moscow! Let Ehrenfels hear your love!"_

The crowd above thundered its approval and at the right-hand side of the balconies, the solid block of German yellow-black-red roared louder than anyone.

As Ariel marched out of the pit, they chanted their disappointment, clamouring "More! More!"

She exited through the iron gates, glancing up at the open-mouthed gargoyles spilling murky water into square pools set underneath. The sculptor had depicted them in the act of taking flight, their long-clawed limbs and skeletal wings forming an archway overhead and casting a leering malevolent atmosphere. But the grotesque figures matched the interior of the fighting pits—rough-hewn stone walls blackened by smoking torches, crude without a hint of subtlety.

An armed guard peeled off from a door beneath the stairway. Ariel waited for him, lazily leaning against one of the iron spears that lined the walls. The organization didn't tolerate squabbles outside the arena, so guardsmen patrolled both the pit where the fights took place and the quarters on the upper floors, like silent ghosts in rust-red cloaks. This one didn't look away as he approached. If anything, he checked her out, his gaze lingering on her bare skin, a smile playing on his mouth.

Foolish, Ariel thought, for someone who'd just watched her slaying a deadly, man-eating creature with her bare hands.

And maybe slightly flattering. Witches like her didn't garner a lot of glances. Her blue eyes were too cold. Her voice too flat. People moved away from her on crowded streets. She told herself it was good to be tough, but there were days she still found it depressing.

The red-cloaked guard followed as she weaved her way through the bottom levels of the arena. When they arrived in front of her room, he hesitated. "Nice fight, m'lady," he said, eying her bloodstained armour. "Should I summon a healer?"

"No, but why don't you summon a bottle of firewhisky and bandages? There's a good man."

Within an hour, the guard had done just that, adding a tray of sliced tenderloin and warm bread. After soaking away a night of sweat, blood, and violence, Ariel lounged in her quarters on the fifth floor, enjoying the darkness supplied by heavy draperies, the luxury of leather furniture, and the aftermath effects of the fight warming her throat and stomach.

She'd dealt with the jagged claw marks on her shoulder and thigh best she could, meaning in a barbaric, unsanitary, and burned-like-hell way, but it wasn't as if she had any other choice. The only healer she trusted with her screwed up body lived in Scandinavia.

Now, freshly bandaged and dressed, Ariel flexed her wrist, muttered a spell, and drew her wand from its hidden holster. Slowly she polished the blackthorn wood, wiping up dirt until it gleamed. She did the same with the holster on her forearm. A fine holster it was. The gliders were edged in goblin-wrought silver. The straps were graphorn skin, tougher than a dragon's hide, and virtually indestructible. The enamel was enchanted to turn wand and holster invisible at will. All in all, the custom-fit, weightless German creation cost upwards of fifteen hundred galleons. Only the big shots used these kinds of devices, and in the world of competitive dueling, Ariel was a big shot.

A fact she'd just ascertained in the two-hundred-feet wide by three-hundred-foot long, ten-storey-high Muscovite arena, slaying beasts and dueling challengers. The Russian coliseum was owned by the International Dueling Federation, and filled with wealthy, highborn purebloods seeking entertainment, ready to empty their wallets edging bets. On a good fight the IDF took in anywhere from half to three quarters of a thousand. The highest intake on a championship duel was over five million. Imagine winning that much. What could anyone do with a pile of cash that big?

Ariel could just imagine Marie saying, _Land yourself in a pile of cash twice as big._

Damn, but she missed the bitch. Though, truth be told, neither of them ever cared about winning money at these events, be it twenty years ago or tonight. The only thing Ariel gained from dueling was the opportunity to use her skills in ways that would be frowned upon in polite society. After all, nowhere else could one kill and be acclaimed for it.

And sure enough, above in the stands, the bloodthirsty crowd roared loud, enthused by yet another death. The arena emanated malice, reeked with dark magic, vicious and furious and foul. Greed and bloodlust mixed there into a miasma that tainted all who entered.

Ariel exhaled deeply. It called to her. Always had. Whispering in her ears, eager and encouraging, thrumming through her body like a siren's seductive song. A life lacking in violence might be the norm for most people, but for her it was a one-way trip to the crazy house, rolling down the bumpy hill of homicide, bloodlust and cannibalism. Dueling made it possible to postpone the insanity, to maintain some level of control on her life without going completely crazy. She couldn't go crazy. She wouldn't. Damned if she would give her father that satisfaction.

Ariel set down her wand. Picked up the whisky bottle. Set it down and, for a long time, simply stood there in the cavernous space, breathing hard and fighting for composure against an emotion she couldn't name.

After a moment, she pulled out a square mirror, raised it in front of her face, and said, loudly and clearly,

 _"Nathaniel."_

A man swirled into the glass in the minute, wearing a silk dressing gown, all tousled blond hair, golden skin, and brown eyes bleary from perusing paperwork.

"You do realize that it is midnight?"

"You do realize that I know I how to read a clock?"

"Cheerful as always. Look at you, you look awful. God, is that a wound? When is the last time you slept? Or ate?"

"What are you, my fucking dead mother?"

"See, dear, this is why you need rest."

Ariel reached for the firewhisky, unscrewed the cap with her teeth and took long swallows, reminding herself sternly that Nathaniel was a friend. It was easier to think of him that way than to be constantly frustrated by the fact that she wasn't allowed to murder him.

"You should watch the drinking."

"I do. I watch my arm come up, then I watch the drink go down."

Nathaniel leaned back in his chair and cleared some ever-present papers overwhelming his desk, disappearing from view. "Be serious for a moment." He reappeared with a mug of that disgusting caramel-laced coffee he consumed by the gallon. "You've stepped it up quite a bit these last months. It's getting to be an ugly habit."

"I always drink after a fight," Ariel said dully. She was thirty-four. She'd survived a demented father, fought a war, seen the world, built a goddamn reputation. And still, when with Nate, she felt like a child being scolded.

"There are better options than the ones you've chosen, old friend. You do not have to fight every day."

"I don't have to eat every day, either, but I get really nasty when I don't. I have these little fits, remember? Rage-induced blackouts where I kill everything in sight?"

"I know but—God, just slow it down, will you? Charging into dangerous situations and risking your life for an adrenalin rush is not worth it. It's all fun and games until you actually die."

"I don't think so. See, I'm strangely hard to kill."

"You may be insanely strong, but you're not immortal. No one expects you to be. Perhaps you do, but you really are not. That being said, you actually ought to be more careful than others."

"I am what I am and no amount of 'being careful' is going to change that." Ariel lifted her eyes to the stone ceiling. "Why must I explain these things?"

"What you are is the head of the Ehrenfels. Your family motto is Blood First, for Melusine's sake. There is your house to consider, and its responsibilities, the foremost of which is to stay alive and get an heir. If you would take the trouble to become acquainted with wizards of your own class rather than illiterate one-night-stands—"

"I know, I'm revolting—a single woman fucking willing partners in the privacy of her own home. Sometimes I cry myself to sleep, I'm so ashamed of my actions." Ariel squelched a smile at the dismayed look on Nate's face and raised the bottle in a toast. "Rather than commiserating about my debauchery, I believe congratulations are in order. Though I have some questions about your letter. Muggles, you said."

He took his time answering. While some felt a need to exaggerate, Nathaniel Bourbon liked to present facts. And while many were prone to jabber, Nathaniel Bourbon rarely spoke unless he had something useful to say.

Ariel respected him immensely, but was careful never to tell him that.

"Poor ones, at that. But her regrettable upbringing does not signify. Lord, that child. . .She just started reading all the _Young Arithmancer_ journals. I mean reading them, just like that. Hermione's bright. And a good girl, too. Her mother's daughter through and through. Even though she had a hard life for one so young."

"Hard? What are you saying?"

Absently, Nathaniel's hand scraped over his mouth and chin. His face took on a somberness Ariel knew well. And because they'd been friends for over twenty years, years where she'd seen him bury his wife, watched him patiently balance his son's tiny hands in his when he was learning how to walk, still caught him standing in Lucas's doorway late at night just to check on him, she knew how much pain was behind that expression. "She is small for her age, thin, pale. I did the body scan charm. Her weight doesn't make the curve at all."

"Did you notice anything unusual? Burn marks, unexplained bruises?"

"As in, does she fall down the stairs unusually often?"

"Exactly. How's she doing with stairs?"

"Two broken bones in the last twelve months and scarring all over her back, you tell me."

Ariel thought of her six-month-old goddaughter, the scent of her shampooed hair, the feel of her chubby little hands, the sound of her laughter. All smiles and giggles and kisses and hugs.

She looked down at a crunching sound to see that she'd cracked the firewhisky bottle. She set it on the floor. "Anything else?" she asked, watching the last of alcohol draining away over the dark wood.

"She likes to slip food from trays and store it in her pockets. She doesn't like to be touched. What do you think?"

"I think that there are a lot of ways to harm a kid."

"You would know," Nathaniel said quietly.

"No shit?"

He refused to get sucked into her sarcasm, just giving her a look that spoke volumes.

Ariel had to know. She understood that knowing would touch her someplace deep, where even unfeeling bastards like her were vulnerable. She knew it would make her think of other times, too, after she had worked years to forget those scenes.

But this was bigger than her, and so she asked tersely, "You run a rape kit?"

"Rape ki—goodness, no! It wasn't anything like that, thank the Lord. Mistreated and neglected, perhaps, but sexually assaulted, no, absolutely _not._ Never."

"Okay." Ariel caught her reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece. She looked slightly deranged. "Okay," she repeated. "Good."

Nathaniel smiled faintly at her. "Good indeed. Life is so good these days I can hardly believe it. My daughter, alive and grown. Wasn't it just yesterday that she was this baby that fit on the curve of my shoulder? Or maybe when she was pulling herself up, trying to take that first wild step? How did she get this tall and where did all those years go and how do I get them back?

"She used to like peekaboo," Ariel said bleakly.

"Did she?"

"Yeah. I used to put my hand over my eyes, then jerk it away and cry, 'Peekaboo!' Turns out I could do that for hours. Who'd have guessed?"

"I would have. A child is. . .Hermione smiles, and. . .I can't even describe it. But my whole day has been worth it, and if it's a silly thing that makes her look like that, I will do it again. What can I tell you? That kind of love is deeper than words or thoughts can define."

"You're genetically predisposed to do that. You're a father."

"Yes, and isn't it the highest praise you can give a man?"

"I swear, Nate—don't go maudlin on me. I'm not your shrink. I'm not even sure right now if I'm your friend."

"When you meet the goddaughter we had thought dead in battle, then you won't act so tough, my dear."

"About that. Don't you have anything to say to me?"

Nathaniel's smile—amused and exasperated—reached all the way to his eyes now. "I know you are itching to say 'I told you so', and don't bother, because I'm perfectly willing to concede you were right about a couple of things you couldn't have possibly known. As I can't seem to find any logical explanation I suppose I'll have to accept your bizarre instincts."

Ariel tried to hold it. She succeeded. One minute. And then, "Oh, fuck it. I told you so. I fucking well told you so. I was the one who went hunting, remember? Tracked these bastards down like dogs. Would have gotten rid of them all too, if it weren't for someone's misplaced sympathy."

"It was sympathy, but not in the way you think. If you had killed them, you would have been stooping to their level, and I simply couldn't allow that."

"You have to fight them on their own terms if you want to win."

"Is that your way of rationalising murder? Death isn't the only thing that can make things turn out right."

She had dozens of answers for that but her patience was thin, the hour was late, and so she moved on. "One day," she said, standing and reaching for the fur cloak draped over the leather chair's back, "you'll have to describe to me in more detail where is this dimension you live in. It sounds better than Faerie."

Nathaniel's chuckles died down as she turned off the two-way mirror.

Ariel didn't feel like laughing.

She was still queasy, quivered, at the idea of someone putting their dirty hands on her baby goddaughter. Though the baby wasn't a baby anymore. That baby was now eleven. Ariel had one of her awful visions. A might-have-been, wistful vision. One where everyone had lived, at home in the Bourbons' red drawing-room. There were the elderly grandparents, ripe-old-nineties and wrinkled, hair mostly white, Ariel's grandfather barking orders at a bundle of terrified kids while Grace Gauthier chuckled softly beside. Zoe Bones, chubby and chattery with her loud, big British husband Edgar and their three daughters who rolled their eyes at her but did what they were told. Marie, pretty, sunny, saucy Marie, still bickering pleasantly with Nathaniel, still disgustingly in love. And into the room came their twins, Lucas, and his sister, brazen and assured, a doted-on, well-cared-for girl who didn't take any of them seriously.  
Ariel shook her head, twice, grabbed her keys, her boots, and her hat. Then, Nathaniel's words ringing in her head, she prepared to meet her goddaughter.

. . .

It was nearing midnight and Hermione was sitting alone on a low divan, reading a French grammar book and trying to suppress memories of what had been a very difficult week. There was not much space in her head for anything else. The more she attempted to focus on the page, the more clearly she could see the accusing face of her twin brother.

Lucas'd taken it a step further in his bullying. He'd replaced vocal barbs with silences and became so adept at completely ignoring her existence that family meals were awkward. As far as he was concerned she was just an illegal squatter, and hardly worth his attention. Of course, Hermione had tried to understand his feelings, imagine how it had been for him, his childhood, his struggles without a mum, the novelty of having a sister—and failing. Could they have had more different lives? She'd tried to approach him though, convey all that stormed in her heart, but he'd kept treating her like he did the air around him.

Hermione gave up reading. Muffling a yawn, she looked around the room boredly. It was the last of a suite of seven drawing-rooms with an arched hallway that ran continuously through each room. From where she sat, she could see the neighbouring room, all decorated in a monochromatic theme of pale grey-blue brocade repeated in the upholstered armchairs and gilt-framed mirrors. A maid was casting some cleaning charm over porcelain figures kept in a glass-fronted cabinet.

Her family maintained an awful lot of these live-in employees—a chef, a butler, two house-elves, three maids, a gardener, a stable-boy, a handyman. Having "help" seemed old-fashioned and lazy, but looking at the size of the estate, Hermione understood. And her father was busy. Men like him didn't need to work for a living, yet his agenda was full—galas, parties, Ministry business, and whatever he did in his study which involved the sort of inscrutable financial transactions that populated the pages of _The Wall Street Journal._

People could make fun of the privileged all they wanted—really, it was Hermione's hobby—but they did need the maids. Nathaniel Bourbon had no time to cook, because what he did mattered. From what she'd gathered, he had raised and contributed literally millions of euros to charities, and that, she had to admit, was more important than vacuuming.

Thinking of her accomplished father in this world of sniffy, effortlessly bilingual Parisians, of her brother's insufferable condescension, gave Hermione new purpose. She wanted to be part of that and realized that like Lucas, others won't accept her so easily. She had to prove herself to them. Hell, she had to prove herself to herself. Full of fresh motivation, she reached for her book again when suddenly the fireplace blazed to life, bright green flames roaring in the empty grate beneath the marble mantelpiece.

Hermione froze solid and watched in alarm as a black shadow whirled within the flames, spinning as fast as a top. Seconds later, a pale woman with tousled white-blond hair had climbed out onto the fine Persian rug, brushing ash from a wide-brimmed black hat. The newcomer set the hat on the mantelpiece, glanced across the room, then did a double take. "Fuck if you're not the spitting image of your mother, Louise. Or Hermione, isn't it? All grown up. Fuck me."

The words were spoken in English, sharpened by a husky accent Hermione couldn't place. "I'm sorry but. . .do you know me?"

The woman wore a black cloak with thick fur covering the shoulders, that she shrugged off to hang over her arm. Without it, her body had a lean, slender look and something in her effortless manner marked her out as aristocratic. "A better question is, do you know who I am?"

Hermione's gaze roamed over her sharply-defined face, down her windswept hair and robes of black velvet before settling on her boots, splattered with something that looked disturbingly like dried blood.

The woman also looked down, unfazed. "The problem with chimera blood is that it stinks to high heaven," she said as she kicked off the riding boots one by one, "and it's impossible to get off. These are probably ruined. Shame. It's good dragon leather. Heavy. Supple." She stopped inspecting the boots and looked up. "My name is Ariel."

Hermione stared blankly, and then it hit her. "Aunt Ariel? The one who's got a white bengal tiger as a pet?"

"Balqis is my familiar. And I'm not really your aunt, just. . ." Ariel waved her hand languidly. "Old family friend. We're most likely cousins—in the twentieth degree or thereabouts. Your family and mine came to power ten centuries ago and haven't stopped reminding anyone since."

Hermione tried to see if she could recall anything else, but nothing came to mind. Her eyes were drawn back to the witch's sleek robes, where a wolf in shattered chains had been worked in silvery thread over the breast. "What's that?" she blurted, pointing at the emblem.

"The crest of House Ehrenfels."

"Ehrenfels, you say? That's not French."

"I'm German."

"How do you know my family, then? Did you go to Beauxbatons?"

"Gods no, I'm a product of Durmstrang Institute."

Hermione had read _An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe._ She knew Durmstrang had the darkest reputation of all wizarding schools. She wondered what her law-abiding parents had in common with this decidedly odd witch—who was now staring intently at her face.

"Damn, this is strange," she muttered, "last time I saw you, you were commando-crawling around in nappies. Just a chubby, babbling thing. And now. . ."

Hermione's cheeks heated up. Great. That was how she wanted to be remembered: not potty-trained and chubby. "You didn't tell me how you knew my parents," she prompted. "And if you're German, what do you do here? Do you work with my father?"

"Family's loaded, so I don't need to work. I enjoy traveling around. Officially, I'm a martial arts and weapons expert."

"That doesn't tell me much."

"You'd find what I do very boring."

Hermione doubted that, but something made her decide not to press. Maybe the boots.

"You do know that I'm your godmother, don't you?" Ariel took in her shell-shocked expression. "Guess not. I was good friends with your mother. What do you say we go in the city sometime? I owe you some eleven years' worth of presents. I'll do my best to spoil you rotten."

"Oh. . .thank you? Well, you shouldn't, really. . . I mean, thank you so much, but—"

Ariel snorted and surprised Hermione by crossing the room to sit next to her on the divan. Up close she was stunning, with eyes an unusual shade of silvery blue in a lovely, sharp-boned face. She looked young, but tired, drawn. Hermione couldn't guess her age. Twenty-five? Thirty?

"Go ahead."

"I'm sorry?"

"Ask your question." Ariel reclined indolently in her seat. "I know you want to."

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-four."

"Woah! You look younger. Are you married?"

"No. There are these. . . things I like to do. A husband would really cramp my style."

"No boyfriend? Or children?"

"No."

"Um, siblings?"

"No husband, no boyfriend, no parents, no siblings, no kids."

Indescribable sadness swept through Hermione. "And your godchildren," she blurted. "Well, that counts as kids, doesn't it? We're family!"

Ariel broke into a smile. "You're a fine kid," she said, nodding to herself. "I'll simply have to steal you away from your father. Raise you as my own. We'll have to bleach your hair, though."

It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to Hermione. It made her want to move in this woman's house and cook her warm meals.

"You're really nice," she said, shyly. "Makes sense you'd be my mum's friend."

"Why?"

"Um, birds of a feather flock together?"

Ariel put her hand over her mouth. "Right." When Hermione said nothing, she tilted her head to look her in the eye. "You're actually serious?"

"Yes?"

"We're talking about the same witch, Marie Bourbon."

"I guess so."

"The witch who wore a leather jacket over her uniform, who drove a bike, who sneaked out of school on weekends—you think she was nice? Hermione, kiddo, your mother was a lot of things, but a nice witch wasn't one of them."

"I didn't—I was just repeating what Natha—my father told me!"

Ariel muttered something that sounded like _fucking typical Nate_ , then stretched her arms above her head. "I'm going to tell you about your mother. From the heart and no bullshit." She grew thoughtful for a moment, then, "I once saw a man walk into a lamp post on the street because he'd been so busy watching your mother."

Hermione felt herself starting to grin. "No way."

"Yes way. And worse, Marie didn't even notice. It's always the way with pretty girls, isn't it? And she was attractive, your mum. Though it wasn't just her looks. . .It was the confidence. The attitude." Ariel made a gesture of holding a cigarette and flicking a lighter. "She had this thing she did. Used to put two cigarettes in her mouth, light them both and pass one over. And carry her pack of cigarettes rolled up in her sleeve."

"She _smoked?"_

"For a whole bunch of years when we were younger. She smoked, drank, and flirted with older boys—even muggles, if you can believe that. Her uniform skirt was always too short, she wore her hair down and wild. See what I'm talking about? She was the closest thing Beauxbatons had to a bad girl."

"How is it bad to date muggle boys?"

"Most witches wouldn't come near muggles with a ten-foot broomstick. But your mum never cared what anyone else thought." Ariel settled herself more comfortably, placing one arm behind her head. "That's what I liked about her. She was the only one who had it all figured out. She wasn't a bitch. She wasn't a loser or a rebel. She just did whatever she wanted and didn't give an owl's hoot about public opinion."

"Sounds like it," Hermione mumbled. How she wished she'd known her mum. "So you've known each other for a long time?"

"Since we were kids. Six, maybe. There was this party at my grandfather's, and Grace Gauthier—your grandmother—was invited. She was one of those American grandes dames. The kind who wore Chanel suits and always had a glass of wine in hand, and knew everyone. So she shows up at our manor, right, along with her snobbish, snooty daughter who comes right up at me, looks me up and down." Ariel stuck her nose in the air, sniffled imperiously and spoke in a high-pitched French accent, "You. What ees it with zis place? Zere ees a ghost in your basroom, you are aware, yes? And why are you so white, anyway?"

The impression was funny enough to make Hermione laugh. "What did you say?"

"I told her why don't you fuck off, oui?"

"And what'd she say to that?"

"She poured pumpkin juice all over me." Ariel shifted back into her snobbish impression. "Oh, so clumzee, pardon." She snorted. "That's how I met her. We fought. And just like that, we were best friends. We did everything together—played, studied, worked, rebelled. . ."

"Rebelled?"

"Marie never got into real trouble," Ariel reassured. "She was really bitchy, but she was never a bad person. Her heart was in the right place. And she was loyal as hell. Once she'd decided someone was worth it, no one could be a more ardent friend."

Was it possible to miss someone you'd never known? Sitting here, listening to this woman, Hermione had a sudden anger for everything she'd missed, this hole in her life, the unfairness of it all. Maybe it was because at first her mother had been a faceless ghost, and now pictures, stories, anecdotes filled in the blanks. Now she could imagine the what ifs, having someone who tucked you in at night, and read stories when you couldn't sleep, and showed you spells, and bought you your first wand.

She plucked at the golden divan seams. "D'you reckon it's okay to miss someone you've never known?"

Ariel seemed offended by the question. "Damn right it is. No one gets to tell you how to feel." She hesitated a second, then leaned over to smooth away the knot between Hermione's brows with her thumb. "Sometimes," she muttered, "I forget and pick up the mirror to call her. Still. After all these years. . .It seems like just yesterday. I miss it. Even the most mundane stuff—Marie letting herself in, bitching about how her day went. She was so dramatic. She could make me laugh over the slightest thing."

"My parents sound like opposites," Hermione said and her voice sounded funny so she cleared her throat.

"They were. Your dad's all serious and moody, and your mum was loud and cheeky. Nobody could have guessed they'd end up married, with two little twirlers of their own. Not to mention the family issue."

"Family issue?"

"Bourbons don't marry just anybody. Nathaniel's blood is so blue, it's a wonder he doesn't stain his shirts indigo when he cuts himself shaving. His mother's people are even bigger snobs—so there was all the scandal with Marie's father. A muggle's not received, not by the elite, and you can imagine which camp Bourbons fall into." Ariel gave a small head shake. "Your grandparents were wasted on the modern age. They ought to have been biblical. Lady Bourbon would have so enjoyed a good stoning. I can just see her scrabbling to get her fingers around the first stone."

"This isn't the Middle Ages," Hermione started to say but then she caught herself. Everything about the wizarding world seemed rather backwards and conservative. They put a lot of value in tradition: name, family, ancestors were everything. Honestly, arranged marriages weren't that shocking.

Her godmother seemed to understand anyway. "I know, French purebloods are hardcore. But your father's always been one stubborn, intelligent bastard. He was the only child of older parents, raised by nannies, and somewhere in all those lonely years, he formed his own ideas about how the world should work. And by the time anybody got around to pointing out to him that, for example, pureblood princes did not marry halfbloods, he'd been past caring."

Hermione felt a warm fuzzy feeling of pride in her chest. "So, they got married," she prompted.

"Just before our Grand Tour—we traveled the world after graduation. Nate, Marie, this wizard, and I. With healthy sums of gold from our vaults and the connections of our parents we started on a one-year adventure. Of course," Ariel said contemplatively, "your father, ever the nerd, had the whole itinerary planned out carefully. It drove your mother crazy. She said, 'the best plan for a trip is not having a plan'.When we reached America, she demanded we leave the boys sleeping and run off to have some fun."

"You didn't!"

"We charmed a muggle car best we could, drove out to Texas and went canoeing down the Rio Grande." Ariel was smirking widely, now, her hands resting on her knees. "I can still see your mum whooping, hair blowing in the wind as she stood up at the wheel."

Hermione laughed, delighted. "And then?"

"Then. . . We went home, to war."

Conversation lulled then. There was a moment's uncomfortable silence, and as Hermione pondered on what to ask, Ariel ruffled through the books on the low table. _The Lineages and Histories of the Houses of Europe With Descriptions of Lords and Ladies and Their Children_ , _Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy_ , and _50 Things Every Pureblood Lady Should Know: What to Do, What to Say, and How to Behave._

"Now this is boring reading if ever I saw it. You could just brew a sleeping potion. It's as effective. Did Nathaniel ask you to study this?"

"No. I wanted to."

Her godmother made a sound that mingled disbelief with incomprehension and opened the first book. Hermione couldn't hold it against her. It was the biggest book she'd ever seen, a great thick leather-bound volume with yellow pages of crabbed and interminable script, the cover and title inlaid in brassy lettering.

Ariel started reading where she'd left off, the section on House Bourbon, scanning the pages attentively.

Hermione knew it almost by heart. Theirs was an old line, tracing their descent back to Adhémar de Bourbon, a wizard who lived one thousand years ago. His descendant Béatrice de Bourbon, also known as Béatrice the Bumptious, was a medieval witch no doubt as legendary as her contemporary Jeanne d'Arc, though far less beloved of writers and historians. Béatrice, yearning to write her name across the book of history, hatched a plan to seduce and marry the younger son of the king. Her great-great-grandson, after a streak of shady deaths, became the first of a line of Wizarding Kings. However, once the Statute of Secrecy passed into law and the French Revolution unfolded, Bourbon wizards and witches went into hiding and disappeared from the muggle scene. Notable modern Bourbons included eighteenth-century Domitille de Bourbon, the infamous researcher credited to have written 'all about the Imperius Curse' in her controversial masterwork titled _l'Art de la Manipulation_ ; Lionel de Bourbon, a taciturn politician with a tough-on-Muggles mentality who became Minister for Magic in the early 1900s; and Hippolyte de Bourbon who was widely believed to have helped finance revolutionary Gellert Grindelwald's rise to power—though he always denied it. Hermione had seen pictures of the man, he was her grandfather. He did look like a snob.

Ariel closed the book. "What were you looking for, exactly?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just. . .Well, it's because of Lucas."

"What does he have to do with anything?"

"He says his real sister is _dead,"_ said Hermione, very crossly. "I just want to prove him wrong, that's all. I thought there might be something useful in there."

"Lift your right leg."

Hermione gave a baffled look, but propped her sock-clad foot on the table. Ariel leaned forward and raised up her nightgown to poke at the side of her knee. "See that brownish birthmark? Lucas has the same on the other knee." She sat back and said flatly, "You don't need any books."

"Oh."

"Just show it to him."

"I don't think that'd change anything."

Ariel surveyed her. "Are you afraid of him?"

"Of course not," Hermione said briskly, "but you have to admit that he's rather impressive, isn't he?"

". . .In what way?"

"He's, I don't know. Knowledgeable. He's got all these posh rules about how we're supposed to interact. Like he's some kind of nobility and we're all peasants."

Ariel nodded significantly. "Story time," she said, snapping her fingers. "Years back when your twin was a toddler, I took him to Berlin. Underground Berlin. There's this world-renowned black market with illegal creatures and shops where you can buy anything if you've got enough gold."

"Just like that? My father let you?"

"He didn't know. He was working in his study."

Hermione felt her respect for this woman go up a notch. She obviously had guts.

"We went shopping, right, Lucas and I, and when I had my back turned for about five seconds he decided to strip completely naked, nappy and all, in the apothecary. I only became aware when this lady tapped me on the shoulder and whispered into my ear, 'Excuse me, love, your child is dancing naked beside the shrunken heads'."

A picture formed in Hermione's head, and before she could stop herself, a snort of laughter blasted.

"You couldn't take him anywhere," Ariel went on with disgust. "Even at home he used to get into the weirdest shit. Once, he was four, I heard him talking to himself in the bath. So I went to check on him. He was using a small piece of cardboard to push this enormous tarantula in the direction of the bathtub and talking to the spider the entire time, like, 'excuse me, sir. Pardon me, sir, can I invite you to perhaps travel this way? Not that way, sir. Over here. No! Don't bite—Oh, sir. I cannot believe you've done this.'"

Hermione buried her face in her nightgown to bring her laughter under control. Her voice muffled, she said, "At least he was polite about it."

"What I'm trying to say is there's no need to feel nervous around him. You're just kids. Settle that with your wands and then shake hands. I, for one, would enjoy a spirited bit of dueling."

"Are you encouraging me to fight?"

"As my grandfather used to say, a fist is worth a thousand words."

"I don't think that's how the saying goes."

"It should." Ariel smiled ruefully. "Lucas might be your twin, but he's also a boy. You better brace yourself for frequent disappointment."

"I'm exaggerating a little, I guess. He's not so bad. . .And at least he always distract the guests," said Hermione brightly, "so they don't notice me."

"Don't worry. They'll notice. Especially at the Ball."

"Where?"

"The New Year Ball. Nathaniel will introduce you to everyone. It's what, two weeks away, now."

"A ball? Are you sure we're going to a ball?"

"You're _hosting_ a ball."

Hermione started to feel panicky. "I really hope not. I hate meeting a lot of people at once. I will never get the names straight and I don't think anyone will wear name tags."

"Probably not."

"Oh, no. This will _never_ work. I mean, I'm hardly pureblood material. I barely know anything about France, the country, the customs. I'm sure to put a foot wrong. And I'm not sophisticated or pretty. I barely speak French—"

Ariel raised her hands. "Easy. Don't you have a tutor yet?"

"I do actually. . ." Hermione sighed. December had taken on a rhythm, always the same schedule. French and etiquette lessons in the morning and afternoons spent reading up on magic and practicing spells. "I even have a dancing master, you know. And a maid who comes in the morning and evening to help me—she thinks I don't know how to dress myself. I've got to pretend so I don't hurt her feelings."

"You don't have to pretend, just tell her that she'd better make herself scarce. And about the ball, if you ever commit some sort of faux-pas and embarrass yourself. . ." Ariel gave a look that said she didn't think that was very likely and said, "Then you'll just have to lose yourself in the crowd."

Fairly reasonable logic, Hermione thought as she tried to stifle a yawn.

Ariel noticed. "I'll let you get some rest now. If you need anything, owl me. I'll see you soon anyway." She stood, gathered her boots, cloak and hat. Before jumping in the fireplace, she said, almost offhandedly, "You know, your parents wanted a big family. Kids from one end of the chateau to the other. I'm sure your mother would've been terribly disappointed if she knew her children didn't get along."


	6. 6

_**6**_

Lucas Bourbon's first fight ever took place on New Year's eve.

They were having a ball—but of course they were having a ball. They were Bourbons, there was no fancier venue for a party than their chateau and their New Year Ball had been one of society's biggest events for centuries.

"I read magazines all morning in my room so I wouldn't have to eat breakfast with them," Lucas told his friend and prep school classmate, Eric Delacour. "My father cooked her crepes. It's crazy. I didn't even know he knew how to use a stove."

"What magazine?" Eric asked as he bushed imaginary crumbs from his purple dress-robes. "There's a whole article about Nimbus Company in the latest _Which Broomstick._ Their new broom is gonna be revolutionary, I've been drooling over the pictures, it looks like something from the future. Have you placed an order yet—"

"Yes but who cares right now?" Lucas snapped, stamping his foot, the tassels of his Italian loafers making a pecking sound against the leather. "The point is, I was trapped in my room all morning because they were busy having a gross family breakfast in the kitchen. They even _washed_ the _dishes."_

They stood in a corridor lined with rich damask wallpaper in cream and silver by the hall, and Lucas thrust his fists in his robes pockets savagely. The reason he was so upset was Hermione Bourbon, his twin sister. At that very moment she was somewhere in the chateau, getting ready. Hermione looked like someone who might help you pick out vegetables at the market—brown-haired, brown-eyed, forgettable. She read books incessantly, acted very British, was clever and sweet to their father. But she'd come from London and didn't know a thing about their world. No kidding. She lived with dirty muggles all her life and didn't know the difference between wine and grape juice, or goblins and forest elves. Of course none of that was her fault, but that didn't matter to Lucas. As far as he was concerned, she was a complete loser.

But tonight he was going to have to tolerate Hermione, because of the ball party. The usual suspects were here. The Delacours, their daughters and their nephew Eric; Lord and Lady Beaumont and their son Kayss; Ariel Ehrenfels; Beauxbatons's Headmistress, the Minister for Magic. . . The only ones missing were the Zabinis who were away in Italy. Other than this tight-knit circle, most of Europe's pureblood well-dressed elite milled about, all in attendance. The party was typical fare. Politicians and aristocrats and celebrities rubbing shoulders, acting friendly and laughing while secretly hating each other.

Lucas felt like that famous witch Jeanne d'Arc, a brave, misunderstood martyr.

He heard a rush of music and conversation as a door opened, which died down when it closed. "What are you two buffoons doing now?" Kayss Beaumont asked, sidling up to them and ruffling Eric's hair.

"Talking," said Eric as he shoved him back. "Did you mess up my hair?"

"You can thank me. Your cereal bowl coiffure is a crime against hair." Kayss leaned against the wall. "What are you talking about?"

"My lovely sister," Lucas answered, eying the other boy's garb. Embroidered black silk tunic with a crimson sash over matching silk trousers. Cool, but then again Kayss Beaumont was one of those lanky boys who always looked cool. His black hair was slicked-back, and his bronze complexion was the gift of great Moroccan genes on his mother's side. Standing next to him, Eric Delacour looked average—short, brown eyes, mousy hair. But what he lacked in looks and style, he made up in goodness. He was so nice and bubbly and enthusiastic about everything and everyone, Lucas had to look out so other people didn't walk all over him.

The three of them attended the same small, exclusive, uniforms-required prep school on Seesyle Avenue, and would all go to Beauxbatons in September.

Which meant they knew each other well.

Kayss was smirking. "You're jealous. It's so lame."

"Jealous? Me? Of Hermione? If it's a joke, I swear I don't find it funny."

"Have you ever had a real conversation with her?"

"Enough to know she's a loser," said Lucas pissily. "So what?"

Eric tugged at his bow-tie anxiously. "I don't think she's a loser. I kind of like her. She's unusual and polite and smart."

"Of course you would think her smart. How many books have you read in your whole life? Two?"

"Your dad must have read dozens of libraries and he loves her," Eric argued. "Really, I don't think she's dumb."

"She follows him around everywhere and bake him pies, what do you expect? He's not going to _not_ like her."

Kayss gave a melodramatic sigh. "You are so jealous. Jealous that your twin sister adores your father while she doesn't give you the time of the day. Am I right?"

Kayss could be so irritating. Lucas was tired of his knowing, introspective-poet act. But before he could tell him to go to hell, the butler's voice rang out, loud and clear, down the hallway. "Master Lucas, Lord Bourbon would like you to come greet the guests."

Lucas scowled, shrugged away from the wall, straightened his attire—ivory robes and short cloak of blue velvet fastened at the right shoulder with a golden clasp in the shape of a crown—and strode in the long, marble-floored hallway to the gilded ballroom packed with people, his two friends close behind him.

"Don't say I didn't try to help," said Kayss casually.

"There's help and then there's being freaking annoying," Lucas snapped.

"You can tell he's really mad," Kayss told Eric. "He hasn't even talked about the World Cup's final, and that match went on for five days."

"He's not mad. Maybe he's just feeling shy, you know, his twin's a girl and _all."_

 _"Right._ Lucas is feeling _shy._ Since when has Lucas ever been _shy,_ Sweet Little Eric?"

"Well, he's not mad. And I don't like it when you call me that!"

Lucas ignored them both as he crossed over to his father and sister. The room was abuzz with snatches of gossip about the Bourbons. From what he could hear, his father's friends absolutely didn't feel the same way he did.

"You must be thrilled."

"Congratulations, my boy!"

"We are _so_ happy for you, dearest."

Lucas grinned. "Thank you! It is so nice of you to join us this evening," he exclaimed, completing his salutation with an elegant bow.  
Lord de Rippert gave a nod of approval before taking his wife by the arm and leading her inside the ballroom.

Lucas grimaced at their backs. Thirty minutes of greetings counting, and the guests seemed hell-bent on prolonging the agony. Standing up like this while three hundred people paraded past him was _not_ his idea of fun. His face hurt from smiling, and he was sick of people kissing his cheeks and making him tell them how happy he was. As if. It was bad enough that he'd been forced to pose for the reporter's camera with his head pressed against Hermione's.

"He has been incredibly kind to me," Lucas heard her tell someone. She was standing next to their father on the receiving line and telling people how happy she was to have such a cool brother. He knew she was being sarcastic. He wanted to hex her.  
 _And a Happy New Year to me,_ he thought bitterly.

. . .

"Oh Gods, so I had to go to Brazil on this Castelobruxo program my parents signed me up for, and I thought it would be, like, hanging out on the beach and partying in Rio. Instead we were supposed to catch fire slugs and explore the Amazon rainforest. Hello, who _cares_ about slugs? I'm from _Beauxbatons,"_ a girl with a fake tan said to a skinny boy as they picked at the hors d'oeuvres.

Hermione mentally gagged in her lemonade. She dodged a bottle of champagne that floated unsupported through the air and gave the two teenagers her back.

On her other side, two women wearing elaborate hats piled with flowers and ribbons were chatting about a gala to raise money for the peregrine falcons that lived in Paris's biggest park. From what Hermione could understand of the quick-paced French, they were going to build birdhouse mansions for them.

Like there weren't thousands of homeless people that could use the money.

Across the buffet table, the Japanese ambassador, clad in a sumptuous grey kimono, was indulging in chocolate-covered strawberries. He caught her eye and offered a small bow of his head.

Hermione bowed in return. Her ears buzzed with the clatter of so many voices competing to be heard over the music. The blur of languages was ridiculous; the common tongues were French and English, but there were a dozen accents, the Asians spoke in asides to each other, and at the end of the table a couple were having an enthusiastic conversation in Arabic. Over three hundred guests milled about, small groups with drinks in hand, chatting with the ease of those who know each other well. Teenagers stood near the doors, lounging against balconies or walls, gossiping and looking idly about.

The moment people spotted Hermione with her father, they went silent and wide-eyed. She'd found herself the uncomfortable center of attention as she was introduced to everyone. She'd lost track of how many times her father easily transitioned from small talk about so-and-so's political gossip and jokes, chuckling about how his old friend the Minister for Magic was so 'humble and self-effacing' to and _by the way may I introduce you to my daughter Hermione?_

But even when the guests were dying to go nuts over a juicy bit of gossip, they kept it together. They were purebloods. They were polite.

 _I'm so delighted to meet you, mademoiselle!_

 _However it happened, it's a miracle you're here my dear!_

 _Nathan, you rascal, we had no idea you had another beautiful child hiding away!_

Lucas, for his part, was downright impressive. He laughed, he joked, he sparkled. Hermione started to think maybe it actually was genuine.

Now all the guests had passed through the receiving line and she was at a loss as to what to do. Alone, she stood at the edge of the dance floor, half-blinded by all the twinkle and dazzle. Glass chandeliers flickered overhead, illuminating the pearly curtains draped at mirrors and windows. White roses trees were placed at interval throughout the ballroom and blue ribbons with gold accents hung from candelabras and sconces. Enchanted harps played by themselves in the corner, accompanied by the otherworldly chant of wood nymphs. Waiters in white greek togas distributed flutes of champagne and escorted guests to their appointed tables—all uniquely dressed as if attending a fashion show or a beauty pageant. Some wore sumptuous robes of flashy turquoise, ruby velvet, and deep purple while others fancied bright feathers, capes of smoky silk, elaborate armours studded with gemstones—and no two hats were alike.

Hermione looked over a thick cloud of cigar smoke where a circle of conservatively-dressed men surrounded her father, who was dashing tonight, dressed in shades of blue-teal and grey-slate, cape patterned with flying thunderbirds. Then she tried to localize Lucas, but before she knew it, she was flanked by four girls in their late teens, all wearing formfitting gowns and high heels.

Hermione steeled herself. Suddenly she was reminded of a documentary she'd seen about shark attacks.

They surrounded their prey before tearing them apart.

"Hermione de Bourbon," the one wearing tangerine said in a breathy voice as she approached, as though Hermione's presence had literally knocked the wind out of her. "Why, how lovely you are. Don't you look just the same as your brother? The same cute little face!"

"Thank you," said Hermione, dazzled by the compliment. Her father had told her, "You look pretty, dear," but that was sort of his job, and her brother had said, "Your tiara's on crooked," and then, after she had fixed it, "The maid didn't do a bad job with your hair," which was the closest thing to praise she had ever gotten from Lucas.

The witches introduced themselves: Vivienne de Rippert, Ondine Desmarais, Guenievre Hauteclocque, and Lorelei Sureau.

"So," Vivienne went on, "how do you like Bourges?" Her laugh tinkled through the air. "I assume it's no comparison to the—the village you lived in before. Becoming the heiress of such a house must be quite the challenge, _non?"_

It took Hermione a minute to respond. "The chateau and France are very different from what I'm used to," she decided to say, not wanting to add to the general Parisian rudeness.

Ondine Desmarais took a sip from her champagne flute and nodded emphatically. "I bet it is. I took a tour of muggle London once and I must say, these streets have nothing to do with ours. They don't even have proper homes. And the noise! Machines with dreadful beeping sounds, all hours of the day and night, and those muggles having to walk to get anywhere—did you know it takes them hours to travel to other countries? Hours! How _odd_ is that?"

Hermione tried to smile, but instead ended up twitching as the other witches voiced their agreement.

"Haven't you seen enough among them fools to work it out for yourself, Ondine? They are muggles, it's the best they can do with what they have," Vivienne de Rippert said, wrinkling her nose. "They're suited to such lives. Unnatural, that's what it is."

The silver-robed witch—Guenievre Hauteclocque—interjected, "If muggle streets disgust you so, why would you even go there?"

"Why do people visit circus sideshows? It's always amusing to see the freaks being put through their paces."

The sheer meanness of the answer took Hermione aback. She looked at the girl in surprise. "Well—"

"It's not the muggles' fault," Guenievre chided. "You should show pity, Vi. Do you think they wanted to be born magic-less? It's nature's course, simply."

"More like it's an abomination of nature, you mean."

The three other witches exchanged exasperated glances, snorts, and eye-rolls, as if to say, _There she goes with the abomination rubbish again._

"This is serious, ladies," Vivienne shrilled. "There's a reason we hide from them. Witch burners, hunters, murderers. . .This is the reality of the muggle nature. What you call pity, I call idiocy!"

"Vi, it's the New Year. Can't we just skip the philosophical debates for once?"

"Someday you will be sorry you took so little interest in our kind's safety." Met with disinterested stares, Vivienne lifted her chin. "I can hardly be the only one here who realizes how concerning it is that muggles steal our children. And not any child—a _Bourbon._ Kidnapping her. Leaving her lordly father and brother heartbroken!" She whirled around to Hermione, eyes blazing with righteous fervour. "They were terrible to you, _non?"_

"Not really. Muggles aren't so different from you and I."

The lack of support didn't deter Vivienne. "Hear!" she exclaimed, startling a nearby waiter. "Not so different from you and I. . .For Belenos's sake. She's been brainwashed by these things."

"No, I haven't," Hermione said, pretty sure it was exactly what she'd say if she had been brainwashed.

Lorelei Sureau leaned forward, black curls falling over her forehead. "You have grown around them, but don't go thinking muggles are like us, _chérie,"_ she said to Hermione, frowning in concern. "Hasn't it occurred to you that maybe. . .they weren't meant to exist?"

Vivienne de Rippert furiously bobbed her head along. "They weren't. Weak and dumb, with their short lifespans and sad little prejudices against sorcery. They see real power and can't wait to stamp it out." She sounded impassioned. "You—us—we've all been marginalized. We're forced to hide in the shadows, afraid of discovery while _we_ are the superior beings. I hope one day we'll put muggles in shackles and make them stand to hear their crimes enumerated. Having them and their muggleborn spawns running around free is just gross."

Hermione felt as though she'd stumbled on some mythological creature.

This girl was a total nutter.

Lorelei misinterpreted the congested look on her face, and actually squeezed her arm with sympathy. "Poor you, Hermione. What an awful time you must have had, raised in the dirt, never knowing your true parentage. . . _Quelle horreur!"_

Hermione's nose itched at the cloying smell of far too much Chanel. "Honestly, it wasn't that bad," she said uneasily to the four teens staring at her. Only Guenievre Hauteclocque appeared every bit as disinterested as she felt. She noticed Hermione looking and sent her a comradely roll of the eyes.

"Leave the poor child alone, Lorelei. Seriously, you're scaring her."

"Yes, you girls are no fun," Ondine cut in, blue eyes gleaming. "Don't you think it it must have been exciting, living among muggles? Like an adventure. Imagine, it would be like being a mudblood!"

"Melusine, there is no need to be crass. Mind your language, will you?"

"Get off your high hippogriff, Guenievre. You're worse than my mother," Ondine vented before turning to Hermione. "I'd love it if you tell me all about it. Precious little else that passes for excitement round here, no?"

Hermione doubted that her account of looking through rubbish bins for food would be as thrilling as the older girl hoped, but she nodded obediently.

Ondine beamed. "You're the latest craze, Hermione Bourbon! Although these witches," she said, winking toward a tight group at the balcony, "are Americans. Can you believe it? From Ilvermorny, of course. Rumour has it they're making the rounds looking for fiancés here because their parents are flat broke."

"Don't you be rude," Guenievre scolded. "I'm sure they're perfectly nice."

"I didn't say they weren't perfectly nice, I said they were perfectly broke," Ondine retorted, looking around the ballroom. She blinked her wide eyes slowly. " _Grands dieux!_ Is that Iseult Faivre? Would you look at her! Pixie cut!"

"Hello," Lorelei murmured, following her line of sight, "the twenties called and they want their hairstyle back. Did she have lice or something?"

Vivienne de Rippert giggled. "I heard she had this manic depressive fit and hacked it off with cutting hexes," she said in a confidential whisper. "She had to go to the salon to fix it. Everybody knows in our year."

"I think it's actually a wig!"

"Bet you're right, Ondine. It's too shiny—that's the telltale sign. I think it might be veela hair."

As the other witches prattled on about how expensive veela hair was, Vivienne raised her arched eyebrows at Hermione as if just remembering she was still here. "Wanna come have a cigarette with us?" she offered. "Your family has nice balconies."

Before Hermione could even think of a reply, a hand clasped on her shoulder. "What are you doing?" Lucas scowled at her. "C'mon. Time to eat."

. . .

Two hours before Lucas Bourbon's first ever fight, the twins sat at a table covered with black taffeta and white muslin with five other fellow underage witches and wizards.

Hermione stared at the array of silverware.

"It's not that hard," Lucas said before pointing at her soup spoon. "Work your way from the outside in."

"I knew that," she angrily whispered back.

Lucas shrugged and went back to what he was doing, inconspicuously spooning bread crumbs into Kayss Beaumont's berry lemonade, while Eric and Gabrielle Delacour entertained themselves by making food sculptures instead of eating, because the foie gras was 'too nasty, and they haven't served the pastries yet, so there's nothing else to do'. They'd nicked Lucas's plate, and stuck three guinea fowl pies on top of each other, linking them together with two cocktail straws. Eric knew how to do this because his mother was an architect.

Hermione ate the foie gras very slowly as she watched them. She liked Eric the best of all the other kids. She didn't feel nervous around him since his mum was a muggle. He was smaller than her so she was pretty sure she could take him on, which helped. Everyone was speaking in English for her—or trying to—but he took it upon himself to teach her how to swear in French.

 _"Bâtard!"_ Eric exclaimed. The music was so loud that they all had to shout. "No, no, no. You have to pull the face, too. Again. Bâtard!"

"Bâtard!" Hermione threw up her hands like him, then burst out laughing. "I can't do it."

They spent most of the evening joking and spotting the people the most comically dressed, or the drunken ones, and Hermione had such a good time. Everyone seemed to think she was terribly interesting and witty, and to someone who had spent her life without friends, this was a heady combination. Approaching midnight, the crowd hushed and stopped dancing for the countdown. At _Trois, deux, un,_ champagne flowed, laughs, catcalls and cries of _"Happy New Year!"_ and _"Bonne Année!"_ rang out in the ballroom, and the ceiling filled with enchanted fireworks. As dragons of red-and-gold sparks, pure-white swans, brilliant silver stars and blooming flowers whizzed through the air there were _oohs_ and _aahs_ of wonder. Then red-faced, smiling couples swarmed the dance-floor, drinks in hands.

Kayss Beaumont leaned toward Hermione and asked if she wanted to dance.

"Oh, but I'm not sure. . ."

"Come on," he said and tugged her along while Eric cheered and Lucas choked on his lemonade.

Hermione managed not to embarrass herself—seemed the lessons payed off, after all—and soon she was too busy dancing to think of anything except the delight of being at a party. Nearby her father was waltzing with Ariel Ehrenfels, beautiful in a fitted gown that had a slit up high on her thigh, her ashy hair piled up in curls. Both whirled sedately about the floor, looking every inch the aristocrats born and bred into this world.

Fleur Delacour danced with a tall Asian wizard dressed in artfully ripped black robes, and raised her blond eyebrows at Hermione as she passed near. "Cute," she mouthed, nodding approvingly toward Kayss.

Hermione beamed in answer. She hadn't met a Delacour she hadn't liked yet. The song ended, but her father intercepted her before she could go back to the table, sweeping her into the music. She barely had the time to catch her breath as they moved across the polished floor, colourful gowns of the guests swirling by.

"You look flushed, dear," her father said. "Tired? Or is it the new shoes? Kick them off, if you want. Be comfortable," he advised. "Do you want me to carry you back to your bedroom?"

"It's all right," Hermione said hurriedly. But her feet did hurt, so she decided, "I'll just go to the bathroom for a bit."

When the dance ended, she edged around the ballroom, and slipped out into the hallway. The ladies' rooms on the ground floor were the nicest ones in the chateau. All purple, and there were mirrors and couches and stools with tassels everywhere, in case witches in fancy hairdos felt overwhelmed by their beauty or something. Thankfully, it was also empty, and Hermione sat into one of the couches, her dress pooling around her like melted sapphires.

She had been going to let her father choose her clothes, whatever would be appropriate, but when the tailor pulled out the blue dress she knew she had to wear it. The sleeveless gown was made with the richest royal-blue velvet and had a full skirt, knee-length and flowing. But its loveliest feature were the delicate fleur-de-lys worked in gold thread over the bodice. Gold and blue; the colours of House Bourbon.

Hermione had barely managed to remove the matching sling-backs with some contortionist movements that she heard the door bang open. She looked up, then stiffened when she saw Lucas enter. He smiled—it looked a little forced—then sat two stools away.

". . .This is the ladies' room."

"So? I live there. Anyway, this isn't a social visit. Father wanted me to check on you."

"Why am I not surprised?" she muttered, bending over to rub her sore, aching feet.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

When Hermione was done, she made it to the sink, setting her tiara carefully to the side so it wouldn't get wet while she washed her hands. Lucas wandered over, regarded his reflection in the gilded mirror. He had retied his blond hair and repinned his blue cloak at the shoulder.

Side by side, they did look like twins. Except he was the fancy one, destined for a life amid the stars, while she was clearly going to become the crazy cat lady who lived alone down the street.

His eyes met hers in the mirror. "You danced with Kayss."

"Yes, I can't get over how kind he has been."

"He finds you. . .interesting."

Hermione could tell the concept baffled him. "Lots of people do these days," she said, only half-serious. "I'm abnormal, I guess."

"Well, things that are normal are just normal. Anyone can be normal. Most things that are weird are cool."

"So what you're getting at is, I'm weird?"

"I didn't say that!"

"You might as well have."

"God—don't put words in my mouth!"

"Don't get so upset when someone takes the mickey."

"Who's Mickey?"

Hermione burst out laughing. "You're really something. Take the mickey, take the piss, have a laugh, make fun of somebody."

Lucas reddened and drew himself up. "I may not have had your. . .education, but I know plenty of words that you don't."

"Right, also the proper way to put on a tiara, Latin and dance _la valse._ Oh, and you can play the piano."

"Shut up. Just because today you're pretty and your hair doesn't look like a brown octopus attacking your head, it doesn't mean you can—"

Hermione stomped her foot in annoyance. "You did _not_ just say that."

"Wait—" Lucas moved forward, his eyes latching on her knee, that had peeked out from under her dress with her movement. "What's that mark?"

"My birthmark, you idiot." Hermione tugged her dress down to hide it completely. "Leave me alone. I'm getting out of here."

"In your dreams. What you're going to do is show me that leg, right now! You won't fool me like you did everyone. You're a fake, probably some illegitimate cousin who looks enough like me to try and—"

Lucas never finished his sentence, Hermione's fist caught him under the chin. His head whipped back, he raised his hand to his face in shock. Other than the usual Quidditch brawls and curses, he'd never really fought someone, but some deep reflex made his leg shoot up in retaliation. A scuffle ensued and they rolled together on the ground in a furious confusion of flailing arms and kicking legs and muffled yelps. Lucas's head hit the wall, his grip caught on the sink above, and then suddenly—

Something gave way.

With a creak and a _whoosh,_ the whole world turned on its axis. Plunging them both into the dark.

"Wh—?" Hermione gasped. "What happened?"

Damn if Lucas knew. One moment, they were fighting. A moment later, the entire section of wall had swung on its axis, depositing them here—wherever 'here' was.

He couldn't tell. He just knew that everything in it was close. And stale. The air smelled of rot and the mustiness of centuries. Slowly, they pushed onto all fours and stood up, as much as they dared.

"Is it some kind of secret passage?" Hermione asked in a whisper. "I can't see a thing."

She made a movement forward and Lucas bared the passage with his arm. "Stay where you are," he ordered over his shoulder. Morgan only knew what was in there. He still had nightmares because of the boggart he found in a remote corridor some years ago. With his free hand, he felt around the space. "I don't know. More like a secret closet."

"It must have been a refuge. A hiding place. People built them during the Terror when they were hunting royals and wizards. That's why there's no map of the castle. Many have died trying to invade us during the wars. There is no natural or artificial light. The air is stale because—"

"Hermione. We're trapped together in a small, dark space. I don't think this is the time to remind me of my many valid reasons to resent your presence."

"Right. Well, there must be a way out of here."

Lucas scouted the wall, pulling and pushing on each brick. Nothing. He tried throwing his weight against it in an attempt to make it rotate back the other direction. He just succeeded in hurting his shoulder and yelping in pain.

"Wait—I'll _just—Lumos!"_ A light appeared at the end of Hermione's wand, blinding white. She held it high over their heads, and walls reflected from all sides, as if they were in a stone closet. "Can you see that?" she asked, pointing at their right. There was a ladder built upright against the wall, which extended up to a trapdoor.

She made a gesture to climb, but Lucas pushed her away. "I'll go first," he said, annoyed. Couldn't she see how unsteady that thing looked?

Hermione muttered something that sounded like _tosser_ but let him pass.

The ladder was so narrow Lucas had to climb with his feet sideways so they would fit. Cobwebs swept into his face and he shuddered.

With a mighty push of his hand and a rusty creak, the trapdoor gave way and a crack of moonlight flooded in. Lucas crawled up and found himself in the attic. _Oh,_ he thought. The chateau had always been a showplace, more museum and shrine to family heritage than home, but the attic was his domain. A dress rack with bags holding his mother's old things, including her wedding gown, antique furniture to climb, silver to smudge, and enough medieval clothing to provide with hours of dress-up entertainment and make-believe stories of knights rescuing princesses. Trunks and shelves filled with the detritus of family shipwrecks, inscrutable objects from centuries gone by, honest-to-God swords, heavy jewellery, creaking armours, monogrammed wax seals, piles of photographs and paintings of unidentified ancestors, and the occasional rare find like that soft gold crown. A slender circlet of entwined fleur-de-lys, which six-year-old Lucas had stuck on his head, so when he came down for dinner he looked like a prince. His father and the butler had indulged him, calling him _Your Royal Highness_ all night.

"Can I come up?"

Lucas held out a hand to haul Hermione through. She looked around in wonder, grimy streaks on her face and what looked like part of a cobweb in her hair. He hoped the spiders had vacated. "This place must be full of treasures," she said breathlessly, as though she had heard his memories.

"It is," he nodded. The attic had always been his secret playroom with the ancient wooden floors and dust-covered hatboxes.

Hermione leaned toward a low, small trunk and opened it to reveal a stack of folded, faded fabric, wooden boxes, an accordion file full of paperwork, a stack of envelopes bound together so tightly the rubber band had bitten into the centers of the envelopes on both the top and the bottom, a pile of books, their covers yellowed and dry.

Lucas stifled a sneeze and picked up a blue notebook, flipping through the pages. It was a mishmash of things: a listing of clothing comprising a girl's wardrobe, poetry, a letter to the girl's mother with lots of cross-outs, some absentminded doodles.

"Oh my God. . ." Hermione nudged him and pointed to a carnet with a green front cover. "Would you look at this!"

Lucas leaned in and squinted his eyes. Written in a pretty penmanship was their mother's maiden name: _Marie Elizabeth Gauthier._  
Hermione pulled the next carnet out of the trunk. This one was a diary labeled some twenty years ago, in 1967. In September, they read this entry,

 _My trunks are packed, my traveling clothes laid out, and now I am supposed to try to catch a little sleep. But how could I sleep when I'm leaving in only seven hours? Papa is not entirely keen (then again, he's not keen on anything witchy) but Mother thinks it'll be beneficial for me to go out in the world, meet friends my age, share a dormitory. Something about not having a nanny to unpack my trunks and no housemaid to run my bath. Beyond pathetic, if you ask me. Why should I be forced to lower my standards for the dubious prospect of making a friend or two?_  
 _Ariel says I'm a snob. She is awfully disturbed by leaving home, but I do think it's all rather exciting. Of course, she will go to Durmstrang, which is a school for the barbaric, Mother says, and nothing to get excited about. I have tried to explain to Ariel that Durmstrang doesn't offer ballroom dancing and she shouldn't enroll there but she just says things like 'Beauxbatons sucks' and 'Put down my sword, Marie.'_

Lucas smiled and turned the pages to an entry three years later.

 _Balthazar de Rippert just asked me if I intended to spend this month writing in my diary during class and expect him to do all the work like I did when we were partners in Potions last year. Well, pardon me! I think someone is rewriting history. Talk about rude. WHO couldn't manage to master the Draconifors spell in Transfiguration? I could've gone cruising Friday night with the fifth-years, but no, I had to tutor him in the common room. Douchebag!_  
 _Anyway, I've been thinking about my birthday. I told my parents not to even dare throwing me a Sweet Fourteen party. The very thought of pink cake makes me want to hurl. I wonder if they'd let me travel with Ariel—she's going on holiday to Iceland with her uncles, Alaric and Torsten. I've never met Torsten, but from her letters, I can tell he's a hilarious guy, crazy, like Lord Gerhardt (maybe crazier). Though Papa will probably want me to attend another boring gala and talk to boring people with boring names like Jean or Michel. Michel Dupont; sounds like the name of a TV private eye. I don't want a wisecracking TV private eye who wears boring suits or forgets to shave. I want scary but handsome Ehrenfels wizards who'd put the fear of God into you by just cracking their knuckle—_  
 _I must go. Balthazar is being a drag and keeps poking me in the ribs and saying, 'Stop writing and help me mince the daisy roots.'_

"I want to read these," Hermione said, and Lucas looked at her, then at the trunk. The books did look like better-than-average reading material. It was so strange to read the entries and think of his mother writing them. Impossible to reconcile her with this girl, so honest and young and silly. Maybe there'll be something embarrassing about his father and godparents in there.

"We should leave," he said, gathering up the packet of letters and the pile of books and notebooks. He led the way to the attic's door which opened onto a set of stairs leading to the second floor, then they went down the grand marble staircase to his bedroom on the first floor.

Lucas dropped the papers on his bed and went to wash the dust and grime off his hands. He emerged from the bathroom to the sight of Hermione curled up in an armchair as she rapidly consumed the pages of an old notebook. He looked at her and checked the clock on his desk. Past two, and the party was still in full swing judging from the strains of music and sounds of people moving around coming from downstairs. He thought for a moment, then went to rummage in his wardrobe.

"Here, catch."

Hermione startled and ducked just in time to avoid the clothes he'd tossed.

Lucas scoffed and went back into his dressing-rom. From her reaction, you'd have thought he'd thrown her a bludger. As he dragged his robes over his head, he heard her mutter, "But what am I supposed to do with these?"

"What do you think? Wear them."

"But I can just go back to my—"

"For Melusine's sake, just do it."

Hermione changed and migrated to the middle of the bed while her brother showered. The dragon-patterned pyjamas were just the right size.

"Scoot over." Lucas settled on the bed, his shoulder-length hair brown and wet from the shower. "Did you read that part about Balthazar de Rippert? He's Vivienne's father. I saw you talking with her earlier." He grinned. "Completely crazy, isn't she? I mean, she looks sane—except when you actually start _listening_ to her."

Hermione didn't smile back. She studied him suspiciously. He'd given her the cold shoulder for one month, they just fought, and he wanted to chit-chat? She was too tired to argue again, and she could see the book in her lap sort of beckoning to her, saying, _Come and read me, come and read me, you know you want to._ "What do you want?" she asked brusquely.

Lucas blinked. "Just talk."

"Why?"

"Can't I talk to my sister?"

"Sister? Woah. That's not what you were saying before."

"No, but I'm. . ." He stopped himself, glanced away, and said, way too quietly, "You're infuriating."

"You're one to talk."

They both remained silent, locked in a staring contest. And it occurred to Hermione that they were more alike than she'd first realized.

Stubborn.

"What now?" she said. "Round two of you ignoring me?"

"I'm sorry about that. It was a rude thing to do, but I didn't believe. . ." Lucas tugged on a lock of his hair. "I know you're my sister. That's it."

She only stared.

"Look, I didn't handle things well since you came to the chateau."

"No, really?"

"Anyway," Lucas muttered. "I've been thinking. . .if I were in your shoes. . .I'd be thinking, what a jerk. So, if you're willing, we could start over? Please? I really am sorry."

Hermione took a deep breath, hating that she felt this vulnerable, but having to ask anyway. "Do you hate me?"

Lucas opened his mouth and then shut it. "Of course not." He frowned and corrected, "At first yes but it was only because I didn't believe you. Or I did, but I didn't want to _admit_ that I believed you. But you. . . I just. . . I even don't know. I'm sorry."

"You don't think I'll ruin your family?"

"You mean, am I afraid of Father deciding he loves my loser British twin sister more than his golden baby? Not a chance."

Hermione snorted a laugh. "You _are_ a tosser."

"Must run in the family."

"No, it's just you. And I didn't choose to live in London, you know."

"I sure hope you didn't." Lucas rolled over to his side of the bed, shuffled, and came back up with two cans. "You have to try this. All the rage in America."

Hermione studied the silver-lined can of _PepperMint Mirth_ and popped the lid open. For a few moments they just lay there on the fluffy pillows, sipping fizzy, minty drinks.

Then Lucas sat up. "All right. I do want to know about London," he said, eyes sparkling. "Who did you live with? In whose house, which neighbourhood? Did you go to school? Were you friends with muggles? Tell me _everything."_

Hermione couldn't help laughing. She could totally imagine him cornering the Japanese ambassador downstairs and ordering him to explain Tokyo. But it was nice, being interested like that. So she made herself comfortable, and told him about the Grangers and their neighbourhood and Larry and Emily and whatever else she could think of, and she felt something inside of her lurch and then fall into its righteous place as Lucas laughed at her stories.

. . .

Sometime after four, the white double-doors of the bedroom opened a crack, casting a beam of light around the floor. Two silhouetted figures hovered in the doorway, whispering to one another.

"I told you they were sleeping."

"Yeah. Just wanted to make sure nothing crazy was going on."

"Now, Ariel, what sort of mischief could two eleven-year-olds ever commit?"

"Who knows? When I was their age I used to sneak out at night and ride my broom to Berlin. I had a thing for underground cagefighting."

"I cannot believe you didn't get caught."

"I did get caught. I wasn't grounded or anything. Grandfather thought it was a good character-building initiative. Said he was proud."

". . .I'd like to say I'm surprised, but Lord Gerhardt's idea of bringing up a child was to send you three days in the woods, no?"

"Just me and a knife."

"Charming."

"Don't mock the training runs, Nathaniel. You never had to eat squirrels, mice, grasshoppers, or whatever other shit—"

"I told you several times not to mention eating insects in my presence. It's unseemly."

"Listen to you. You're such a wimp. I'm not sure why I'm willing to be seen with you in public." The double doors creaked as they opened wider, and a pair of silvery eyes peered out. "What's that carnet in Hermione's hands? I've seen it somewhere."

"I have no idea, but aren't my children adorable? They look so precious cuddled together. We should let them sleep."

"Adorable? Just wait until they grow up." The double doors closed and footsteps moved leisurely down the hallway, the two voices fading away. "Did I tell you about the owl I received from Durmstrang?"

"Your cousin again?"

"Nighttime wanderings, out of the school grounds. In some goblins-owned forge in the neighbouring village."

"Upholding the family legacy, I see. Interested in swords?"

"Axes. He's at that age, you know. Obsessed with all things lethal or illegal. Gods, does that take me back."

"Do you know, I never quite understood your people's fascination with blades, like some common muggles."

"Muggles, wizards, goblins. . . Bah. They all die all the same once you slice their heads off, Nate."


	7. 7

**_7_**

Hermione was reading at her desk when a grating sound came from the wall, like quill against parchment. Unfazed, she didn't look up from _The Standard Books of Spells_ until the screeching died down. Then she put her book down and read Lucas's message that had written itself in black words on the cream wall.

 _Rendez-vous in the hall in twenty minutes._

Hermione wondered what he wanted. She'd intended to spend the next hour memorising potions recipes but if she ignored him, he'd soon be banging her door down, bouncing up and down on her bed, and demanding her attention like an immature imbecile. With a sigh, she pushed her chair away from her desk, grabbed _Magical Drafts and Potions,_ and left the comfort of her bedroom.

Two excited voices came from down the marble stairs, but too low for Hermione to make out what they were saying. She glanced over the banister to see Lucas lounging sideways in an armchair with one leg dangling over the arm. He'd changed out of his pyjamas into tan chinos held up by brown suspenders over a white short-sleeved shirt. In his hands was a pearl-and-copper cloak.

Hermione wanted to say something witty like, _Hey, Lucas you forgot your bowtie!_ but then she noticed the stranger sitting on the sofa. A black boy about their age, dressed in charcoal pricey robes and a traveling cloak covered with onyx studs. He looked like he was waiting for something to impress him.

Hermione was trying to keep from exposing herself in her fuzzy ice-cream-cone-patterned nightgown when her brother zoomed in on her.

"Come down!" he called out. "I want you to meet someone."

Turned out 'someone' meant Blaise Zabini, an Italian wizard living in London who shared Lucas's hatred for tutors, love of outdoor war games, and interest in contraband firecrackers. From what Hermione understood, their friendship was based on crime. They seemed hellbent on becoming cool, rebellious teenagers.

She shook her head. "I don't think you're going to be able to carry off the bad boy act."

"Really?" Blaise drawled with an unbelievably insolent smile.

"Yes. But you're trying very hard, I can see."

"I'm glad to see I'm living up to your standards."

"Oh, but you're not!"

"Really?" Blaise drawled again, in exactly the same awful tone.

Hermione giggled. "Very good, but do you want to know why I don't think you could ever be a proper rebel?"

The boy plunked his hands down on the table and leaned forward. "You can see I'm waiting desperately."

"You're too nice!"

Blaise sat back and looked over at Lucas. "Is that a compliment?"

Lucas shrugged and snatched Hermione's potions textbook, frowning. "Aren't you tired of studying? There'll be plenty of time for that in Beauxbatons."

"Hogwarts," Hermione corrected, but she was ignored, as always. Her twin didn't believe her when she said she wanted to go to Hogwarts. Now he was complaining to Blaise about how she was socially inept.

"She never wants to play, she spends most of her time studying or reading and when she's not in the library she's in the kitchens baking with the chef—"

"With the help?" Blaise shuddered. "I'd kill myself."

"I know! And you'd think all this time hanging out with me would have trained the boringness out of her. I'm not sure how that's managed not to happen really. She's a loser who's going to have trouble making friends at school."

"I wouldn't worry too much about that. There ought to be other fellow swots in school she could befriend."

"That's what I'm worried about! What if she wants to join the chess club or gobstones club or runes club or some other rule-the-world-someday club—"

Hermione snatched her book back and pointed a finger at them. "Sorry to interrupt," she said sharply, "but not everyone's lived with wizards all their lives! Some of us only found out a couple months ago they have magic! Some of us are being thrown into a new world and don't appreciate being ignorant and some of us are only trying to do something about it!"

"Oh, but I _like_ her," came a feminine, throaty voice.

Hermione spun around to watch two silhouettes walking through the great front-doors. Her father, with an expression of casual amusement, and a woman, who was laughing in delight, clapping her hands together.

"My mum's a hugger," Blaise warned under his breath as the adults approached.

"Pleased to meet you, Mrs Zabini—" Hermione was roped in a hug before she could finish.

"Enora, darling." Mrs Zabini pulled back to study her, and Hermione was suddenly very self-conscious of her pyjama-clad, frazzled self. This woman was beautiful, her cheekbones high, her skin a deep brown with cool undertones. Everything about her screamed class, from her styled bun to her high-collared black robes with red rubies sewn into the bodice and dagged sleeves that almost touched the floor. "My, but you're so pale! Nathaniel, this calls for an Italian getaway. Your daughter absolutely needs some sun."

"You know I dislike traveling there, Enora. It's a never-ending struggle since your people genuinely believe their food is the best in the world."

As the two adults bickered like old friends, Hermione studied Blaise Zabini. Genetics never ceased to astonish her. He had inherited the good looks as well as the haughty expression.

Lucas nudged her. "You should get dressed. We're going out." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the entrance where a gleaming black carriage awaited before the front-steps, pulled by two temperamental black winged-horses the stableboy was struggling to hold.

Hermione looked at her father blankly.

"Ah, it's only you, children. I have work to do but Enora wanted to take you out. And I advise you to hurry, before those murderous beasts maim our stableboy."

Some moments later, the carriage was hurtling at a breakneck pace in the sky, the countryside shrinking rapidly into a patchwork of greens and yellows. Comfortably seated, however, on the thick cushions, Hermione knew she wasn't in any danger of tumbling out. The wind flapping the collar of her robes and whipping her hair, she stared out the window at the Zabinis' Granian horses.

They were the wildest horses she'd ever seen. They fussed and snorted and objected to everything that strayed into their path. They tried to trample birds. They exchanged equine insults with the few winged horses they met. They strove to fly through every cloud.

Even when they reached Paris, the angry horses showed no signs of tiring. They tried to run down the construction workers repairing a Haussmann building. They threatened to alert the clueless muggles down with their loud neighing. They succeeded in none of these, however. To Hermione's admiration, Mrs Zabini quelled all attempts at mayhem effortlessly, despite driving with only one hand.

"I suppose it wouldn't be any fun," Hermione said, thinking aloud, "if they behaved themselves."

Mrs Zabini chuckled as she smoothly drew the carriage back from imminent collision with the Eiffel Tower with a flick of the reins, and Blaise said, "Maybe they felt your bad temper, and they're frightened. It's just nerves. Right, Herpo, Merwin? Afraid she'll yell at you?"

The beasts tossed their heads and answered with evil horsey laughter.

Herpo the Foul and Merwin the Malicious were two famous dark arts practitioners. "Who named the horses?" Hermione inquired.

"Blaisie did," said Mrs Zabini with a fond smile.

The carriage drive at this point began to veer downward for the landing, the sounds of wings batting the air soon replaced by the clomp, clomp, clomp of the horses' hooves briskly trotting on the cobblestones and the creaking of the carriage's wheels.

"You two settle down, now," warned Mrs Zabini. "Make the least bother and you'll soon find yourselves performing tricks in a circus."

The horses responded to the threat just as though they were human. Instantly they became a behaved, docile pair, trotting neatly among other carriages and rare cars populating the straight boulevards.

Hermione had gone into Wizarding Paris to buy her wand during the winter, when the city had been a silvery wonderland and a parade of lights. Now, in March, the afternoon sun was golden, the sky clear with a hint of orange where it fell across the rows of elaborately cut stone buildings, their iron-black balconies and windowsills spilling over with flowers, red poppies and pinkish daisies and yellow tulips and white anemones. The air was already full of the expectation of summer as wizards and witches were out for a Saturday stroll, sitting at tables on the sidewalks, eating in cafés and restaurants, young people drinking cocktails, children carrying sorbets. The smell of food was overwhelming—freshly baked bread, warm, yeasty and steaming, slowly roasting chickens outside the butchers, seafood in butter and garlic sauce, meaty odour of sizzling thick steaks emerging from pavement brasseries. . . And all mingled with smoke from cigarettes dangling between manicured fingers. Parisian witches greeted each other with kisses as they stopped on the pavement, delicate under their loose dresses, their ankles slender, cheeks sharp under pointed hats.

Mrs Zabini certainly didn't look out of place among them. She was gorgeous. Shockingly, even. In the beginning, Hermione held that against her. How could a witch be taken seriously when she dressed like she should grace the covers of fashion magazines?

But it turned out the Italian witch was engaging and gracious. As they sat at a café in Seesyle Avenue, the most popular wizarding alley downtown, she regaled Hermione with amusing stories of her colourful life while Blaise and Lucas chatted, switching back and forth from French to Italian so quickly that Hermione couldn't help but wonder how they could ever make sense to each other.

"They always do that," Mrs Zabini commented, sipping a diabolo through a straw. "It was quite hilarious watching them play as toddlers, when they couldn't understand one another. They used to blabber on and on until one of them heard a word that sounded familiar. For instance, Blaise would say, 'Voglio un dragone' and Lucas would be all, 'Oui, dragons? J'aime les dragons!' . . .Cutest thing I've ever seen. . ."

Hermione, in the last months of living in a remote countryside chateau, had forgotten what a neighbourhood felt like, one where people lived and worked and ran into each other. As they sat in the sunshine, lingering over coffee long after the waiter had cleared the dishes, people came by—people Mrs Zabini knew, people Lucas knew, and to Hermione's amazement, people _she_ knew.

Ondine Desmarais, walking past with her mother and brother, came to her with a squeal-infested hug, double-cheek-kiss greeting and "Oh! How have you been? Look at you!"

Eric Delacour's father, who owned the upstart stationary shop down the street, stopped by long enough to say hello and tempt them with rainbow ink and peacock quills. He introduced a sculptor who owned an art-supply store a few blocks away, and then the wandmaker arrived with his four children in tow and dark circles under his eyes—"Vinewood, how ees eet working for you, Mademoiselle? And yours Monsieur, ebony, was it? With cores from the same dragon, of course, an Antipodean Opaleye..."—and Lucas and Hermione answered him, watching in bemusement the toddlers running around the tables.

Through it all, Mrs Zabini wore an expression of cool politeness. However, when they were leaving, she warned about keeping bad company. Some of these people, she said with lowered breath, are new money and others are halfbloods and one cannot be seen with such acquaintances. She said _halfbloods_ in a disgusted whisper, as though they ranked below maggots in term of creatures you could befriend.

The rest of the afternoon was spent window-shopping and exploring wizarding shops. Magic might be cool, but Hermione found out combining magic with shopping and raspberry smoothies was even cooler. As they walked by Gladrags Wizardwear, the boys declared they _needed_ those mood-changing pinstriped swim trunks on display, to the distaste of Mrs Zabini. She said it was unseemly to buy off the rack.

After ten minutes of arguing—"But Mamma, they're _mood-changing"_ and "They're the coolest Aunt Enora, please!"—gold changed hands, swimming trunks were bought, and plans to go to the beach were made.

As Lucas paused to admire a beret in the colourful display window of Mademoiselle Capucine's headgear shop, Hermione realised she didn't have any hat. Skirts, shirts, pyjamas, robes, but no hats. And it was on her school supplies list.

Mrs Zabini was dead upset about this. Hermione tried to explain that she couldn't possibly bother with shopping when there were all those books to read and spells to try but she was all, "Darling, where did you get the idea that academics were more important than appearance? Your father, I'd wager. With him, it's always books, books, books. He does not realize that education is as important as deportment! You _need_ hats!"

And so, within one hour, they had visited a renowned seamstress, milliner, glove shop, and tailor. They ordered hats, they bought handkerchiefs, they chose stockings. More than once, Enora said she'd never seen a young witch who needed so many articles of clothing. Still, she rather looked like she was enjoying herself.

"I've always wanted a daughter," she confessed as they climbed back in the carriage for the drive home. "Next month, we'll order gowns."

"Next month? But—"

"You don't think I'm done with you, do you? We've only just started."

"But I can't take up all your time, Mrs Zabin—"

"Enora, darling, Enora. And you don't have a choice. Now, what else do you need help with? Dancing? Potions? I am a dab hand at poisons, I must say."

Did she say she liked this woman? Hermione decided she loved her.

. . .

During a fine Monday afternoon in April, Lucas was sitting on a session of the Conseil, pretending to be paying attention while old warlocks in wigs and robes droned on and on about tax evasion and tax havens in Faerie. He should be flattered to be allowed in the debating chamber, listen attentively and take notes or whatever you were supposed to do in here, but he was too bored to do anything. He'd honestly tried to listen but there was something profoundly, fundamentally, soporific about taxes. The middle-aged witch in his direct line of sight was sleeping with her mouth open.

Lucas was more discreet. Whenever his father dragged him to the Ministry, he wore a hat and tilted it forward so he could doze off in peace. Sometimes he admired the high-domed ceiling, painted with scenes of the French Kingdom's vanished glory, while the councillors debated and made laws from great wooden seats.

He was in serious danger of falling asleep when at last his father stood to leave. Thank God, his neck hurt with all the sitting. Politics could be so demanding of physical faculties. While councillors were still talking, gathering up their papers and packing them away, Lucas was already out the door, tugging on his father's hand. He was thinking they might make it unnoticed when a hard-looking, grey-haired councillor caught up with them.

"Lord Bourbon, that Muggleborn Adoption Act has dragged on for far too long," the warlock thundered, "I dared not hope you would consider appealing to it after such an adamant opposition, but I have a proposition. . ."

No kidding he's opposing it, Lucas thought, stifling a yawn. Turned out their family story had actually moved the country. They were debating about passing a new law to take muggleborn children away and put them in the custody of wizarding families. Something about how muggles couldn't be trusted with magical children. Even Lucas knew the proposal would never pass. If word got out to the muggles, who knew what might happen? It could provoke war between the magical and non-magical worlds.

He hoped his twin wouldn't hear about it. She'd do something insane. He could already see the reporters' headlines, _'Bourbon Scandal!'_ , recounting how Hermione went up to the Minister of Magic and said, 'Who's adopting who, huh, punk?' and then head-butted him or something.

Finally, they left the Ministry and rode back to Bourges. While his father lingered in the foyer to speak with the butler, Lucas climbed the stairs two at a time, glad to be home again, but as he approached the first landing he heard noises. People were talking in the east wing.

"Hello?" Lucas called.

There was no answer but the conversation continued. He skipped across the landing, entered the first drawing-room, and passed from one to another in succession. Past the oak-panelled dining-room, the medieval drawing-room with the round stone table, the beige sitting-room with the armchairs padded in purple velvet, the romantic rose-and-silver morning-room—until he stopped in the fifth archway. Cream, peach, solid ebony and a slash of burnt orange; the colour scheme of the music room.

". . .Yes, but Beauxbatons. . ."

". . . No, doesn't interest me, really. . ."

Sunlight poured in from the wide window behind the grand piano, backlighting Hermione's brown hair and setting Blaise's green robes aglow. The two were in deep conversation, their heads bent slightly downward, feet dangling off the bench.

Lucas waited for them to notice him, growing irritated by the minute. What the heck were they doing _together,_ anyway? Hermione was his twin sister. And okay, he hadn't been a good brother at first but nobody was perfect. Now he understood. Like jazz music and red wine, they belonged together.

". . .I tried to picture a female version of Lucas, and got Lucas in a dress instead," Blaise was saying now, playing with the piano notes. "The image was disturbing."

 _"You_ are disturbing."

Both Blaise and Hermione startled, heads swivelling toward the entrance.

"Don't talk behind people's backs," Lucas scolded as he crossed the room. _You need to watch your mouth because there's always someone listening, even if it's only the Lord,_ his father always told him.

"What if I do? You're going to kill me with your cloak?"

Today Lucas was wearing a gold half-cape across one shoulder, fastened with a lion clasp. "Don't mock the cape, Zabini," he said stiffly, miffed that his favourite accessory was being targeted.

"You have to admit your obsession with cloaks is funny."

"Not really. No one likes to be mocked."

"Then I suppose the Lucas Bourbon School of Mocking will have to shut down," Blaise returned, then he shared a good, long laugh with Hermione.

They were not half as funny as they thought they were. Lucas leaned on a black marble bust and said nothing, giving Blaise his best injured look so that he would realize how deeply his betrayal wounded him, but Blaise must not have picked on his nonverbal signals because he returned to his conversation with Hermione.

"Godric Gryffindor," she was saying, "he was the best dueller of his time, his house is where the bravest and boldest end up, Albus Dumbledore—"

Blaise shook his head in an exasperated way, as though he'd heard it all before. "Cocky and reckless, the whole lot of them. Slytherin is where you want to be."

"Right, if you're power-hungry, snobbish, and arrogant—"

"What's wrong with taking pride in what you can do, and wanting recognition for that? And without ambition, where would many great warlocks be?"

"Maybe," Hermione conceded, "but how about the fact that Slytherin's turned out the foulest, evilest wizards imaginable—"

"Fact?" Blaise sported a sneer that would've made his mother proud. "That's one of the most ridiculous assumptions you can make about Slytherin house. Everyone in it is _evil._ Don't make me laugh!"

"That's what History says, go take a look in _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ or _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century_. They've produced their share of dark wizards—"

"So have the other three houses, they just don't like admitting it—anyway, that's not even a bad thing. A house producing powerful and feared wizards? Prizing students who have the potential to be great? Mate, sign me in."

"Oh, so in your opinion, being a dark wizard means being a great wizard! Well!"

Blaise looked at Hermione as if she'd oozed out of a swamp. "Of course. What's wrong with you? Come on, Slytherin is Merlin's house, the most famous wizard _ever—"_

Lucas could see that his sister was losing the argument—and so could she.

"You're only saying all this stuff because your mum was in Slytherin."

"So what? One of her old school friends is on the Board of Governors besides, he says Slytherins flatten everyone on the Quidditch pitch and they're well on their way to win the House Cup for the sixth time this year."

"Really? Wait, you wouldn't happen to know how first-years get sorted into houses, would you? They don't say anything in the boo—"

"Of course I do."

Hermione brightened to the level of a Lumos charm. "Really? Tell me!" In her excitement, she hopped up from the piano bench, bouncing in front of Blaise in delight. "I just can't wait to get to school, you know. I've been reading everything I can get my hands on!"

For a second, it appeared the Italian would join in the happy dance. "I've asked my mum, easy really. . .First-years get sorted out by some sort of talking hat. Legend has it that it belonged to Godric Gryffindor, and that it was enchanted by all four founders so that it can look into your head. You just got to try it on and wait for it to sort you."  
Hermione's mouth fell open and she threw herself at Blaise, tackling him in a hug.

"Thank you! Thank you. Do you know for how long it's been bugging me? I could _sing!"_

Blaise stared at Lucas with his arms held out to his sides. "A little help here, mate."

Oblivious to everything, Hermione released Blaise, glowing as if he'd discovered the magical properties of the number seven.

A pang of jealousy nagged at Lucas's gut. "Go to your loser school then, Hermione," he snapped, "and get sorted by your loser hat. Shame there isn't a house for traitors and betrayers though, that would have been the one for you."

Hermione told him that she didn't appreciate his tone, and Lucas retorted that he didn't appreciate her treason. Then she resorted to insults and called him a selfish brat. Lucas said he wasn't a brat, she was the brat and a betraying one as well. She remarked that he hadn't denied being selfish, maybe because he was aware of that.

At that point, Lucas said he was done with this stupid conversation because he didn't want either of them to do something they might regret.

Hermione stuck her nose in the air. _"Right,_ I'm off to the library, anyway," she said then, mistaking him for someone who was even remotely interested in what she did. "Blaise, do you want to come? I've got something to show you. My father got me _Hogwarts: A History_ and there's tons of interesting stuff."

Blaise was clearly torn up between the appeal of new knowledge about Hogwarts and staying with his friend.

"Just go with her," said Lucas, very magnanimously. "I have things to do anyway."

To his astonishment, Blaise actually went. Lucas dragged his shell-shocked self to the piano, and sat there, alone in the music room, writing lists with titles like, _Things I'd Rather Be Doing Instead of What I'm Doing:_

 _1\. Face the guillotine._  
 _2\. Be eaten alive by red ants._  
 _3\. Be betrayed by my twin sister and best friend._

"Oh, wait," he said sarcastically, "I've already been betrayed!"

Blaise chose that moment to come back in the room, giving him a funny look. "Who're you talking to?"

Lucas balled up the paper and scowled at him.

Blaise rolled his eyes then opened his hands as if to ask for forgiveness. "I was kind of a git earlier, and I'm sorry about that. You know your cloaks are cool."

"Don't worry about it," Lucas said. He thought of a playdate at Blaise's when they were four. While the nanny read them a book, not looking at them, Blaise had bit Lucas's arm, laughing the whole time. He'd always been a git. Just part of his charm. More importantly, "Was she serious?"

"Serious?" Blaise repeated. "Ah, you mean about the whole Hogwarts thing? Very serious. You're not going to say anything to make her change her mind? It's so stupid splitting you up. Twins. Unbreakable bond and all that. Either swallow that big lump of pride and come with us to Scotland or talk to her, convince her. Make it happen."

In the upcoming weeks, Lucas tried to heed that advice, but arguing and pleading with Hermione clearly didn't work. She was too stubborn. He decided to give her the silent treatment until she saw reason and accepted to enroll in Beauxbatons, but it was proving harder than he'd expected since he was such a verbal person. More than once he started the walk between their bedrooms to show her something funny, like an advertisement for frog-skin belts, only to freeze midway in the hallway, suddenly remembering that they weren't talking. Determined not to crack, he compromised by having long discussions with his owl whenever the urge to chat with Hermione hit him. Sierra had taken to give him affectionate nips with her beak, and the other day while he was at the Delacours', Gabrielle charitably offered him her half-eaten Easter egg, claiming that his sad face was putting her off her food.

After refusing the chocolate, Lucas did some soul-searching. He was being pitied by a four-year-old and a dusky eagle-owl. Hermione showed no sign of relenting—from the way she acted, you'd think nothing was out of the ordinary.

Lucas decided it was time to step up his game.

He burst into his father's study and delivered an impassioned, carefully prepared speech about how Beauxbatons, the largest academy of magic in Europe, where all their family had been since centuries, would make a much more sensible choice for his twin sister than being thrust into a British school miles from home where she didn't know anyone and where she would probably eat alone at lunch and be disliked for some of her unfortunate personality traits, namely her offensively opinionated self. When he was done, his father only gave him one of his looks—the same one he'd given him when he was five, after he'd put a centipede in his nannie's bed.

"Listen, son, you're a young man now."

"What was I before? A young horse?"

His father was well-practiced at ignoring his wit. "And I do not think there should be any coercion in this home," he continued, "which is why I will not forbid your sister to study at Hogwarts if she wants to. The British have a very good curriculum and standard, and you could both board there if you feel strongly about this. I am flying off to London next week for the Spring session of the International Confederation. Perhaps you should both come with me so you can see what you think."

"I know what I think of England. I read the _Daily Prophet_."

"Hogwarts is in Scotland."

What was this, a family crisis or a geography test? Lucas went on patiently, "My point is that Hogwarts is very far away, I'm not from there, all my friends are here. Or to put it another way, I'd rather be burned at the stake than set foot on Scottish land."

His father shrugged carelessly. "Suit yourself. But it'll snow in July before you make the decisions for your sister. If that is all, you can close the door on your way out."

Lucas told him that he would not soon forget this callous treatment.

"Yes you will, son," his father said gently, "You have a very short attention span."

Later, when Ariel stopped by for lunch, Lucas jumped on the opportunity to complain about his cold-hearted family and how he would be twinless at Beauxbatons.

"You'll get used to it," she told him, with zero sympathy. Ariel wasn't big on sympathy. Ariel was big on getting your crap together and getting on with it, as demonstrated when she took his brand-new _Nimbus 2000_ off the dresser and pushed it into his stomach. "Why don't you go enjoy the sunshine?"

So Lucas went to have a sweaty Quidditch game with his friends in Seesyle Park, and when he flooed back home, he found Hermione waiting for him in front of the fireplace.

"I've got one thing to say to you," she said, a bossy look on her face. Lucas hated that look, he usually saw it on those rare occasions when his sister put her foot down and he had to let her have her way. "I'm going to Hogwarts," she continued briskly, "so you better get used to it and stop this nonsense of ignoring me, I mean, honestly, you only care about yourself—why are you smiling?"

Lucas grinned wider. "I see how it is. You missed talking to me so much that your whole world's sad and grey."

Hermione instantly became outraged at his completely on the mark statement. "Oh my God, you're so full of yourself."

"But you so did miss me."

"If I admitted it, would you lord it over me?"

His smile was so wide it hurt his mouth. "I might."

"That's what I figured. So I won't."

"Whatever, Hermione. I'm going to take a shower, yes? Talk to you later."

"All right." But the way the word came out, it didn't sound all right. And from the way she was staring, you'd think he'd just ripped the head off a baby owl.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You're just going to disappear into the bathroom and take a shower now?"

Lucas gazed at her in disbelief. "Am I supposed to make an appointment?"

"No."

"You want me to apologize for not talking to you? Is that it?"

A muscle was thudding away in her jaw. "No, I don't want you to apologize, Lucas. I just don't want you doing what you've just done."

She was crazy. Would she prefer him not to shower? Bewildered, he said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"This!" Hermione pointed to his cloak and broomstick dumped on the closest table. "This." His duffel-bag on the mantelpiece. "Those." His shoes on the red rug. "And this." His black beret on a window ledge. "And _those."_ The armful of magazines he'd tried to put on the arm of a wingback chair, which had slithered off and landed in a heap on the marble floor. "You came into this room one minute ago and look at the mess!"

"Ah. My bad." Was that really what was upsetting her? "I'll pick them up later," Lucas said nicely, to humour her.

"No you won't, so you'll pick them up now."

"But I'm just—"

"Now," Hermione repeated firmly.

"But—"

"Or I throw them out of the window into the gardens."

Merlin, talk about neurotic. Since she clearly wasn't going to give in, Lucas rolled his eyes and retraced his steps around the drawing-room, picking everything up. Even though it was a complete waste of his time because that was what the help was for.

"Good. Well done," said Hermione approvingly when he'd finished.

You had to pity her really. "Thank you, madam," Lucas said sarcastically. "Will there be anything else?"

"That will be all," Hermione snapped back. They glared at each other, then the ridiculousness of the situation hit them, and they burst out laughing. In seconds both of them were lying there, stretched out on the rug, laughing uncontrollably.

Which, Lucas decided afterwards, was ten times better than arguing about boarding schools.

. . .

The following months passed in a lovely blur of sunny days. The summer was in full throttle and each day was hotter than the last, the chateau glowing like amber stone in a bed of emerald velvet under the sun. Every morning, after breakfast, Hermione went with her father on his usual visit to the stables, and even at that hour the air was already warming up. They ate in the gardens most nights now, with the Zabinis or the Delacours and several times they were invited to other families' manors in the countryside. Hermione was almost starting to like Vivienne de Rippert. When the teen wasn't campaigning for enslaving the muggle race, she was all right.

During the day, Hermione read in her bedroom or joined Lucas and Blaise in their quest to cause mischief. The two made quite the pair: one twinkle-eyed boy, pretty-looking but full of cheek. The other was haughty and snarky, both given to leaving trails of acrid fireworks smell in their wake. The other thing that seemed to follow them around was laughter.

Blaise's mother was never far either, since she had a stable full of purebred Granian horses and some sort of understanding with Hermione's father. Every two weeks or so, the Italian witch and the French wizard raced their winged horses in the gardens or went to horse-related events. Apparently that was how they'd met, at a race in Paris where they'd both showed up, toddlers in tow. Sometimes they brunched together and took it as a given that their children popped in and out of each other's estates when the whim took them. Blaise's vivacious two-hundred-year-old grandmother even gave them piano lessons. She was passionate about music and loved it when the family manor rang with young voices and laughter.

However, as evening turned into night, the Bourbons enjoyed quality private family time in the library, hot beverages included. Nathaniel did his finances, but he talked to Hermione as he worked: about how he managed the family estates, about the businesses he wanted to invest in this year, once explaining the entire calculation of a prospective profit. Hermione told him about the latest book she'd read and entertained him with anecdotes about the muggle world. It had become a regular event—dining outdoors, changing into sweatpants and chatting with her father in the library while Lucas would sprawl in an armchair, drawing in his carnet with quick, decisive strokes. That was the only time when he was silent, oblivious to the world, whiskers of charcoal on his cheeks. Once Hermione opened the carnet at a random page to see what got him so absorbed, and found herself looking at scenes of home. Sheet after sheet of pencil drawings, sketches and scribbled notes opened in front of her eyes. There was Lucas's bedroom with the white armchairs and Paris Phoenixes Quidditch posters, the Roman statues in the red drawing-room, half dozens views of the gardens and on the last pages, he had drawn the library, its floor‒to‒ceiling shelves and cozy caramel sofas. Hermione had closed the sketchbook and gone to find her twin for a much needed hug. They had an impromptu sleepover in his room and sipped PepperMint Mirth, listening to jazz songs on the wireless with funny lyrics like, ' _the phoenix cried fat tears of pearl, when the dragon snapped up his best girl, and the billywig forgot to twirl, when his sweetheart left him cold, and the hippogriff feels all forlorn, 'cause their lady loves have upped and gone. . .'_

Everything was slow and lazy these days. Everyone was in holiday mood—except Ariel, who was always busy and moving, despite remaining in the chateau most of the summer. Hermione could pinpoint her location by following the smell of burned wood and rain-washed roses.

Apart from what little she'd told her about herself, Hermione didn't know much about the woman. When she'd asked her father, he said Ariel Ehrenfels was the kind of witch who could do anything she wanted to but who didn't want to do much. She'd been raised in an old, wealthy family in Germany, attended Durmstrang, then struck out solo, rapidly earning a reputation for a fearlessness bordering on insanity. As a mercenary and a duelist she'd drifted toward doing the impossible and been indifferent to anything less. She disliked politics, loved fighting. She was fanatical about loyalty and noncommittal about everything else.

After hearing that, Hermione hadn't expected the witch to be nice to her. But she did fulfil her godmother role in exemplary fashion. Apart from answering to any magic-related questions, she taught the twins the Disarming Charm and the Knockback Jinx, because, "Knocking things out of people's hands is never not useful." Best godmother ever.

Hermione was getting good with a wand, overall. All the spells in her first-year books had worked for her so far, and she'd brewed a Cure for Boils in the kitchen, just to try it. Chopping the pungous onions proved bothersome because of the terrible smell but the chef showed her how to pick up the pieces with her wand—"Nevair with the 'ands, Mademoiselle, it reeks"—and she had to go extract mucus from a slimy flabberworm in the gardens, though at the end, nice, thick pink smoke rose from the cauldron.

"It's a good brew, Mademoiselle!" the chef had tittered. "We'll 'ave to bottle it up now. . ."

Everything about the time before Hermione moved to France, seemed so far away, like it had happened in another lifetime to another person. She barely recognized herself anymore. She was tanned from playing in the gardens and riding the winged horses. A dusting of freckles had even appeared on her nose. Her face was fuller too—all the delicious food—and her legs and arms felt stronger from all the running around. Her 'low-class unpleasantly grating accent' as her father fondly dubbed it, was starting to fade. No point trying to sound urban here, unless she wanted the hired help to make fun of her. No one wanted to hear British; they wanted to hear Parisian. Polite, chic French, the way Lucas was brought up.

Her ever-present bun was gone too. The hairstyle had been necessary in London, because it hid greasy hair well, and her hair was too ugly to let down anyway, but salvation arrived in the form of Enora Zabini who'd flooed in the last week of August, personal hairdresser in tow, saying things like, 'I'm not having you walk around like a fright anymore' and 'Really, what is Nathaniel thinking?'

The hairdresser inspected Hermione's hair, running his fingers through it, tsking all the while. " _Mon Dieu, l'horreur._ Mademoiselle, you do not take care of your 'air, non? But it is so thick, so lovely. You have to take care. We should colour—shouldn't we, Enora? You do not mind going blond, do you, _ma chérie?_ You have the colouring for it."

"I mind," Hermione told him crossly. "I don't want to be blond."

Then she sat in a chair with a thick paste of flowery-smelling product and foil in her hair while Mrs Zabini and the hairdresser gushed over the latest scandal in some society magazine, drinking from flutes of champagne like two ladies of leisure. By the time the wizard had finished pirouetting around with scissor snippets and blow-drying spells, Hermione's entire body was seized up in fear.

It actually looks good, she thought grudgingly now, examining her reflection in the mirror above her cherrywood dresser. The colour hadn't changed but whenever she moved her hair it shimmered. She flicked it up with both hands so it cascaded back down in a browny shower. So shiny!

"Father wants to know if you're done with your packing—" Lucas walked in her bedroom and came to a stop, frowning at her new haircut.

Hermione stared at him, waiting. If he expressed anything but admiration, she was going to sic Antoine on him. She really was. The butler would berate her twin for her, with a long lecture on politeness and etiquette, and he probably wouldn't demand any reason for it, either.

"Pretty," said Lucas with the thumbs-up. "Are you done packing or what?"

After returning the thumbs-up, Hermione gestured at the brand-new, perfectly packed suitcase and nicely pressed, carefully folded black robes on her bed.

"Great, because I need your help to choose what I'm going to wear to impress the other first years," Lucas said shamelessly as he sauntered out. "What?" he said, catching her derisive look. "I'm not going to pretend that I haven't been thinking about it non stop."

Hermione rolled her eyes as she followed him. Uniforms weren't mandatory at Beauxbatons, something about encouraging individuality and creativity. Seemed her twin was taking this very seriously. A dozen cloaks, capes, and capelets were spread on the bedroom floor.

Lucas held up a vibrant turquoise half-cape and a long silvery cape patterned with flamingos. "So? Which one should I wear? Which one?"

Hermione held up a finger and enunciated crisply, "Black."

"Why?"

"My Hogwarts robes are black. It looks. . .grownup."

Lucas shuffled through the clothes in his white dresser and pulled out a long black velour cloak, patterned with twining gold vines and blue fleur-de-lys on the inside. "You'll have to wear yours, too. So we'll match."

Hermione shook her head and went to make sense of the mess on his desk. His pheasant quill was lodged in a beige beret hat and three spellbooks peeked from under the chair. His trunk was half-open, scarves and hats and nicknacks spilling out.

"Honestly, Lucas, you'd better have your trunk packed properly by tomorrow! We won't have much time in the morning. Dad's going to have a fit when he sees this mess. . ."

"He won't. I'll tell Lolly to clean before we go down for dinner. Anyway, I'm too excited to clean, aren't you excited about Hogswot?"

Hermione levitated his quills, telescope and scales in his trunk. "It's Hogwarts and you know it. Why do you keep calling it Hogswot?"

"It's not funny if I have to explain it—do you mind tossing me that beret?"

It took them most of the afternoon to sort out Lucas's spellbooks and clothes from all over his room and stow them inside his school trunk. They had a brief argument over his Beauxbatons uniform.

"You can't _not_ take it, Lucas. I'm sure you'll need it."

"It's lame, there's no way I'm taking it, I'm not wearing a _silk hat_ —"

"No one's asking your opinion, do you want to get in trouble before you even get there?"

Their father silenced them both when he dropped in around seven o'clock, plucking a slim blue booklet from a cabinet and handing it over. _Beauxbatons Code of Conduct_ was printed on its cover and it said uniforms had to be worn during exams and special occasions.

Hermione smugly put the chic blue silk shirt, trousers, matching capelet, ankle boots and hat in the trunk while her father berated her twin for the mess. "Never mind tidying up now, I want you in the gardens—we're having guests. Your godmother and the Zabinis."

Two flights of stairs down, the veranda looked like a setting from a fairy story. Ivy artfully draped the brick walls, framing the three sets of glass doors opening onto the broad terrace. Bluebeard shrubs and lilac bushes had been placed at the edges, giving the impression of a leafy shelter. Fairy lights and candles flickered over the soft peach walls, casting shadows that danced and flitted like playful sprites. The long table was draped in gold, heaped with fruit and flowers and seemingly endless dishes.  
It was one of the warmest evenings of the summer. Hermione could hear the distant clip-clop of horses' hooves and calls of nightbirds. Everything was soft and mellow as if it had been there for thousands of years.

As the sun slowly lowered in the sky, casting the terrace in a golden aura, they all lolled on the grass, drinking cocktails and talking about school days. Nathaniel told Hermione about Beauxbatons and how he proposed to her mother at an exhilarating formal dance. Ariel reminisced nostalgically about the time her headmaster blasted a teacher in Durmstrang's mountain lake, and when asked why, he calmly responded 'to make a point'. Enora recounted how she used to sneak out of the common room along with her classmates and throw clandestine parties outdoors, chugging firewhisky and diving into the black lake. The day they were found out, the Headmaster made a stern announcement that 'the perpetrators would be brought to justice', as if the school had been under attacks. Of course, being Slytherins, Enora remembered fondly, nobody was ever caught.

Hermione and Blaise exchanged eager looks and Lucas announced loudly several times that Hogswot sounded so boring, it was a school for losers—then asked for just one more story.

The sky was an endless, evening violet-blue with ribbons of red and the smell of honeysuckle drifted in the air, dandelion seeds floating by. Hermione had never felt so content in her life. She could sit here all night, her head on her father's shoulder, her brother pulling faces at her from across the table. Something warm stirred in her chest. Unfolding, growing, fluffy like a cushion. She thought she loved these people. She thought love wasn't an adequate word to express the emotion she felt in her chest.


	8. 8

**_8_ **

King's Cross was enormous.

The Greengrasses had reached the station with thirty minutes to spare, and it was crowded with muggles, their luggage, and those coming to greet them. The steady clatter of footsteps, hissing of trains, porters' calls and whistles echoed all around her and Daphne Greengrass stood somewhat bemused with her trunk at her feet while her parents tried to attract a guard's attention. Soon her trunk was propped on a trolley and her father was leading them down the main area to the platforms.

Astoria had kept close to her all the way into London, sulky and grumbling, which was rare for a girl who normally outshouted all the other children. On her other side, her mother shot questions at her, rapid-fire.

Yes, she was sure she had everything she needed. No, she had not forgotten her black pointed hat and _yes,_ she had checked the school textbooks list. Twice.

"For goodness' sake. . ." Her father let out an irritated sigh. "Will you stop fussing?"

"Fussing? I'm not fussing."

"Yes, you are. You've been buzzing all day as though you are the one heading to boarding school."

"Merlin forbid I ever worry on my child's first day of school, Evander."

Daphne exchanged looks with her sister as their father scoffed all over the place. "Ridiculous way of showing it, don't you think?"

Without waiting for a reply, he strolled toward the barrier between platforms nine and ten, pushing the trolley and feigning interest in the train that had just arrived at platform nine. With a meaningful look at his family, he leaned against the barrier.

Daphne clumsily imitated him. In a moment, they had fallen sideways through the solid metal onto Platform 9 ¾, which was also busy—with wizards and witches in robes saying good-bye instead of people in sharp suits going about their day—and looked up to see a gleaming scarlet steam engine waiting, with a sign overhead saying _Hogwarts Express, 11 o'clock._ As she admired the train, Daphne caught sight of her reflection in the train window and sucked in her stomach a little, hoping her stiff-new school robes didn't make her look fat. A furry brown kneazle wound between her legs, purring, and she bent over to stroke its back. The biggest challenge on the platform appeared to be avoiding stepping on one of the cats that lurked relentlessly underfoot. There were lots of owls too, and so many different smells, so many different people that it took her a couple of beats to turn back toward her family. And when she did, she went completely still.

This was because, a tall gentleman with very broad shoulders had just come through the wrought-iron arch spanning the platform. Not only was his frame big but his bearing and features on the whole were aggressive; jaw hard, cheekbones sculpted, neck and throat muscled. His stone-grey robes fit him well, though his age showed in the lines on his forehead and the grey moustache that ran down the sides of his hard mouth. And just behind him, walked a boy in black robes, who, although not his spitting image, couldn't be anything but his son.

Daphne hadn't seen Theodore Nott since his mum had a freak accident a year and a half ago. Seeing him now was quite a shock, like swallowing cold water too quickly. He was thinner, his black hair so long it hung in his eyes. He looked older. Meaner. As if this boy in front of her had bullied the Theo she knew into oblivion.

Not knowing what to say to this odd, tense stranger, she hovered, uncertain, while the adults greeted each other—rather uncomfortably too.

"It has been a long time, Thanatos," said her dad with a terse bow. "I hope you have been well."

Mr Nott nodded curtly in acknowledgement. No bow, of course. Notts didn't bow to Greengrasses. His eyes fell on Daphne, assessing. "Which one's this?" he clipped. He had met them at least a hundred times, but he could never figure out who was who, even hazard a name. One time he called Astoria "Selena."

"That's Daphne."

"I see."

The silence stretched and threatened to become awkward. Then Daphne's mum lit up. "Ah, here is Ivy!" she said, smoothing her chestnut hair, rearranging the collar of her dress.

Sure enough, the Parkinsons were pushing their way through the crowd.

"Calliope, hellllllooooo," Ivy Parkinson tittered as she glided toward them. They'd all seen each other only a few weeks ago at a dinner party, but you might have thought, from the performance she gave, that they were reuniting after the war. "I'm sorry, I'm all aflutter—how _are_ you?"

"Goodness Ivy, you missed the most _ghastly_ argument the other night. . ."

Under her breath, Astoria mimicked their mother's usual oh-my-goodness-that-is-just-terrible tone, "Oh yes, it was _so_ awful, Ivy."

"Stop that," Daphne scolded, and just as her sister took a deep breath—she always gulped air before she said something, her sentences were links of words that just kept coming until she had to breathe again—a bold-looking girl with hazel eyes, a pointed chin, and short black hair strode over to them.

"Girls!" she squealed. "So! This is the Big Day! Can you _believe_ it?"

Daphne gave a shy half-wave. She was always both a little in awe and a little afraid of Pansy Parkinson, mostly because the other girl was so unpredictable. Way back their mothers enrolled them in ballet classes, and when they were supposed to put on their tutus, Pansy threw a tantrum. "That rubbish is on the floor where it belongs," she'd yelled. "I'm not wearing it!" It had never even occurred to Daphne that was an option.

"Did you bring a pet?" Astoria was asking Pansy, when a loud warning whistle sounded. People around them started hurrying onto the platform, parents swept down for a last hug.

"Now, have a lovely term, and don't forget to write us as soon as—"

"Yes, Mother," Daphne said dutifully, hugging her mum back and patting her shoulder. "I'll send you an owl when we get there."

"Be good, and don't get into trouble, all right?"

"She'll make us proud," her father grumbled. "As always."

Daphne nodded, and hesitated, casting a quick glance at the Parkinsons and the Notts. "Think I look okay?" she mouthed, a bit nervously.

Her mother stepped back and surveyed her, tugging and adjusting. She smiled smugly. "You look _darling."_

"Maybe I should tie my hair up."

"Nonsense. You look fine. Do you have the money your father gave you?"

"Yes, she has it," said her father, sounding impatient. "Calliope, if she's forgotten anything we'll send it on. Train's about to go!"

He grabbed the girls' trunks along with Mr Parkinson, and chivvied them toward the train doors. Theo seemed to hesitate, looking toward his father. When the big man only jerked his chin dismissively, he hurried away.

Daphne was about to do the same but she noticed the gloomy expression on her sister's face. "I'll be back before you know it," she promised, rearranging the nine-year-old's Pettichaps scarf and kissing her cheek.

"Don't kiss me in public, I'm not a stupid baby!"

"Behave yourself, Astoria," their mother hissed. "Now, you go on, Daphne, dear. It's about to go."

Daphne's nerves tingled all over. It was finally happening. Along with Pansy, she clambered onto the Hogwarts Express, and they waved at their families until there was another whistle and guards walked along, slamming all the doors shut.

"Let's find a compartment," Pansy declared, as the train picked up speed.

They set off down the corridor, dragging their trunks, peering into compartments as they went. The first carriages were already packed, full with older, mature-looking students. As they neared the middle of the train, there was some sort of commotion, a black boy holding a giant tarantula to shrieks and claps. Daphne pinched her lips together and Pansy pushed people out of their way until there were only a few compartments left... one full of girls giggling over a magazine... another with a redhead and a black-haired boy chatting... one with an older boy stretched out on the bench, fast asleep... Pansy paused at the second to last compartment.

"There's someone in here," Daphne pointed out but the girl waved away her words.

"It's fine," she said as she opened the door with a sharp motion. "That's Zabini—my mum knows his mum."

Bet she did. Pansy's mum wasn't nicknamed Poison Ivy for nothing, she knew everyone and everyone's personal business. In the world of pureblood society, where gossip was the grease that smoothed the gears of conversation, this was quite the achievement.

Four trunks were stored in the luggage rack but only one good-looking black boy was sitting by the window. He glanced at them, nodded at Pansy when she slid in next to him, and resumed his bored expression as he turned away. Theo hoisted their trunks into the luggage rack and plopped down across from him, sullenly and silently, as was his way. Daphne was oddly glad to see that much hadn't changed. She sat to his left, studying the stranger, Zabini, surreptitiously. He was wearing a handsome, clean-cut set of robes—Gladrags Wizardwear, she'd wager—and black leather boots. On top of looking very annoyed, he kept looking at the compartment door and his watch, until finally he stood and disappeared into the corridor.

Daphne had never been on a train before. It all kind of felt like a dream, the way they were being whisked away to Hogwarts. Pansy was jabbering excitedly about the Slytherin Quidditch team which her cousin was part of, only Theo looked like he was on a ride to somewhere he didn't want to go.

Around one o'clock there was a clattering outside and a smiling, dumpy witch pushing a food cart slid back their door and asked if they wanted anything to eat.

"No," Pansy dismissed her on behalf of everybody.

Daphne's stomach was beginning to protest that decision—she'd been too excited and nervous to eat breakfast earlier—when the compartment door slid open again. None other than Draco Malfoy walked in, scowling, and flanked by Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. They all sat across, next to Pansy who immediately engaged them in conversation, to Daphne's relief. She'd never liked Malfoy much, and who knew what went on in the other two's thick heads? Her father always said that still waters ran deep, so maybe Vincent and Gregory had a lot more things going on than she realized. But if they did, they rarely showed signs of it. They spoke so little it was actually quite concerning.

The Hogwarts Express train rattled onward, speeding them out into open country. It was during one moment the carriage was full of sunlight, the sun almost directly visible overhead, that Zabini reentered the compartment at last. He carried a shiny trunk and led a girl dressed in black robes so sleek they had to cost a dragon's hide.

"Slytherin, d'you reckon?" he was asking her. "Weasleys usually end up in Gryffindor but—"

The girl's ponytail, secured with a wide ribbon, swayed behind her head as she sat down in the last empty seat, between Daphne and the door. "Well, I don't know, Blaise, do I? I _might_ have known if you hadn't broken in and started berating me before I even had a _chance_ to ask."

"Berating?" Zabini mocked.

"Rebuking," the girl snapped. "Scolding."

"You know, bella, it's cute, normally. That snooty princess thing you got going. My mum loves it. What isn't cute is you hiding behind that rather than simply saying, 'Sorry, Blaise, I got held up'."

Daphne and Pansy looked at each other with their eyebrows raised. The girl did come off as snooty, like she thought she was better than appearances would indicate. Perhaps it was her firm, imperious voice. Or the thick straight eyebrows that gave her a serious, almost frowning, expression. Or the way she scoffed before pulling out a yellow-and-white metal lunch box, a bottle of water, a book, and not paying the rest of the compartment any attention.

Daphne caught a whiff of fried food and her stomach made a pitiful little whimper. She smoothed out her robes, hoping no one had heard.

A vain hope. "Want some?" the girl asked. She was eating the last fragments of meat from a skewer.

"I'm all right, thank you."

Several moments of silence passed before Daphne's stomach growled again. So much for trying to look gracious and collected. She looked down at her hands, clenched them in her lap, felt her face heat up.

All of a sudden, yellow filled her vision. The brown-haired girl had shoved the box under her nose. "Take some," she demanded. "I insist."

Daphne peered inside. Grilled chicken. How appetizing. Her stomach gave another long winding growl and she quickly realized that something was better than nothing. She picked up a skewer and took a bite. The chicken actually melted in her mouth, crisp skin giving way to tender, moist meat imbued with a hundred herbal flavours she had never tasted before. "Oh, wow. This is good. Thank you."

Zabini reached over and stole the girl's skewer. "Yeah," he said as he chewed, "not bad."

"Blaise Zabini! You know I hate it when you do that!"

"That's actually why I do it."

Fuming, the girl returned to her food as she simultaneously sipped water and angrily flipped through her magazine.

Daphne chewed, swallowed, and instantly thought anyone who had the means and good taste to own designer robes should not be so ill-mannered as to lug around a packed lunch of homemade chicken, however delicious it was. She was about to admire the girl's robes some more, when something else caught her attention. The robes—outside the extraordinary fit, simplicity, excellent quality fabrics and that cutout—were actually unremarkable. Elegant, but unremarkable.

The girl's traveling cloak, however, was _very_ remarkable.

To her mother's insistence, Daphne had learned all the oldest families' symbols and colours, and some of the foreign ones as well. The Malfoy crest bore serpentine creatures curled around the letter _M_ , the Greengrasses' was a crown of entwined green laurels while Pansy's trunk was emblazoned with the Parkinsons' purple wings. The brown-haired girl's traveling cloak was embroidered on the inside with a repeated pattern: three gold flowers threaded on cobalt blue. Fleur-de-lys, the famed Bourbon crest.

It didn't take a professor to make the connection.

Daphne's head jerked toward Draco Malfoy, to see if he had spotted it. Both their houses had originated from France, though the boy didn't seem to care. He was telling Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy something about racing brooms.

Meanwhile, the girl was talking again. "Do you know what house you'll be in yet?"

"Slytherin," Daphne said, with way more confidence than she felt. "Like my parents. What about you—I'm sorry, I didn't even ask your name. I'm Daphne Greengrass."

"Hermione, Hermione Bourbon," the girl answered readily. Not noticing Daphne's shock, she went on, "Well, I suppose Slytherin wouldn't be too bad. Even Ravenclaw. But don't you think that Gryffindor sounds fantastic too? Just—"

"Gryffindor?" Draco Malfoy turned to them and made a small, disparaging noise. "Who'd want to be in Gryffindor?"

Zabini, who had shown no interest at all in the conversation until that point, glanced at him. "She does. Got a problem with that?"

"No," said Draco, but his tone said otherwise. "Though there's a bigger chance she'll end up in Hufflepuff at the rate she's going on, hanging out with the likes of _Potter_ and _Weasleys—"_

"Harry Potter?" Pansy puzzled. "He's really here?"

"Who cares?" Zabini retorted. "And Malfoy, no need to vent your anger on Hermione because you've been turned down by some halfblood loser."

"She can talk for herself and first of all I wasn't turne—"

 _"She_ has a name and it's Hermione Bourbon!"

"Never heard of your dumb name," Draco threw back.

"Don't know of them, either," Vincent Crabbe shrugged.

"I'm sure you don't know a lot, anyway," Hermione dismissed and Daphne had to agree there. Vincent and Gregory were obviously not headed for Ravenclaw.

"When you say Bourbon," Pansy cut in, eyes narrowed. "You don't actually mean _the_ Bourbons, do you? The ones from France."

Hermione straightened in a balance-a-book-on-your-head posture Daphne recognized all too well. "Bourbon as in the House of Bourbon, if that is what you mean. My father's the head."

Head of the House of Bourbon. In other words, if the French throne were _d'actualité,_ the man would be king. Daphne had been so sure she was wrong. But no, here she was, sitting next to the heir to the oldest European dynasty. A witch who looked as ordinary as any other, but apparently was not. Was she supposed to curtsy or something? _Merlin,_ she thought. _Wait until Mum hears about this._

Draco didn't seem nearly as impressed as he should be. Probably something had happened beforehand which might explain why he seemed to dislike Hermione Bourbon so much—despite the more obvious reasons. He was about to speak and maybe shed light on that mystery, when a loud voice echoed through the train: " _We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."_

That was it. They had arrived. Daphne's insides started to churn again, and it wasn't hunger. She hadn't felt so nervous since she took that dance competition and when the examiner asked her what her name was she burst into tears.

. . .

Hermione was the first student to be sorted into Slytherin and she felt almost happy when 'Bulstrode, Millicent!', a girl who looked like she could easily crush watermelons with her bare hands, and 'Crabbe, Vincent!' who could've been her brother, came to join her. Both their sorting processes were three time faster than Hermione's had been. The magical hat had spent nearly four minutes trying to decide whether it should place her in Gryffindor or Slytherin.

"Finch-Fletchley, Justin!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!" shouted the hat.

There were still many people left. Hermione looked at the thousands of candles flickering above, and noted, not for the first time, that the castle looked like a gloomier, British version of Bourgogne-l'Archambaud. The Entrance Hall was as big as the chateau's foyer with a ceiling too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase led to the upper floors. It was relieving to see similarities with home. Because if truth be told, Hermione had been extremely anxious to get to Hogwarts in the first place.

"You are my daughter," her father'd told her when he caught her stalling at King's Cross station. "You will march through those doors. You will hold your head high. And I want you to know, you are the bravest, toughest little girl I know of, and none of these children have anything on you. Do you hear me, Hermione? None of these children have anything on you."

So Hermione did what he said. She walked through those doors. She kept her head high. She made eye-contact with other first-years and smiled and introduced herself and now here she was, at the snakes' table.

"Hello, there!" An older, sandy-haired boy sitting in the opposite bench was talking to them. He made eye-contact with Hermione. "Welcome to Slytherin. Never heard your name before—Bourbon, was it? I'm Terence by the way, Terence Higgs."

"Thank you, that's kind of you. And that must be because I'm French."

"How come you're here?" an other wizard asked. Hermione looked over at him, and he added, "Adrian Pucey, I'm a third-year."

"Well, I grew up in London."

Adrian Pucey opened his mouth but his words were lost as the whole table erupted in applause when 'Goyle, Gregory' joined their house, immediately followed by 'Greengrass, Daphne', the pretty girl with sky-eyes.

Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott, and Pansy Parkinson took the places around them, filling the empty spaces that belonged to the first years. Glancing at the long succession of Slytherins, Hermione noticed their eating arrangements were carefully patterned. The older students seemed to be gathered at the opposite end of the table while her immediate neighbours were all second and third-years.

"Patil, Padma!"

"RAVENCLAW!"

Hermione liked organization. She liked organization, rules, and discipline. That's why she sent a disapproving glance to the Ravenclaws' table—chaotic, compared to theirs, and decided she liked what she had seen of Slytherin so far. All her fellow students were wearing their uniform and robes properly, top button done up and tie straight. The Ravenclaw student in her direct line of sight wasn't even wearing a tie!

"Patil, Parvati!"

"GRYFFINDOR!"

"Potter, Harry!"

A burst of whispers broke out around the room, and disbelief filled the air. Students craned their necks to get a good look at Harry Potter as he stumbled out of line.

A short moment of silence, then, "GRYFFINDOR!"

"He got the loudest cheer," Terrence Higgs commented as Harry unsteadily made his way to the lions' table. He reminded Hermione of Eric Delacour, all squirrelly and nervous whenever he was being looked at. No, Harry Potter didn't enjoy being in the spotlight.

There were only three people left to be sorted. 'Turpin, Lisa' became a Ravenclaw, 'Weasley, Ronald' was made a Gryffindor and finally it was Blaise's turn. He had barely sat on the stool that the hat shouted, "SLYTHERIN!"

Beaming, Hermione jumped to her feet and joined in the applause.

"Told you," said Blaise as he collapsed next to her. "Told you what would happen."

"I could have been made a Gryffindor, easily."

"Don't make me laugh. In what world would a Bourbon not be sorted into Slytherin? Nott, mate, pass me the sausages."

Hermione refrained from tossing out a snotty reply and moved toward the dishes that had magically piled with food instead. In seconds her plate was filled with peas, carrots, cheeses and lamb chops. Being away from home was no reason to pick up bad eating habits. While she ate, she distractedly listened to her new classmates' chatter and people-watched. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw were not so bad, she thought while sipping juice and watching the unaware students of the Great Hall. Gryffindors seemed to be having a good time, but when Malfoy and Parkinson had been made Slytherins she'd heard booing coming from their table—two redheads, and she wondered just what exactly the Weasleys had been teaching their children back home. Because these twins were part of the Weasley family, that much was obvious, just like the pompous-looking bloke sitting next to—

"—Harry bloody Potter. Just look at these weasels, from first to last all sucking up to him like he's the great Merlin himself—"

Draco Malfoy was once again the center of attention, monopolizing the talk. "They're a sorry lot, they are," he spat. "Then again, we shouldn't expect much from someone who's been raised by dirt-veined savages. He's just like them. I can't imagine betraying your own kind like that, I'd rather die. No wonder he and Weasley get along so well."

This animosity hadn't just come out of nowhere. The three boys had fought back in the train and surprisingly Draco hadn't even started it. Ronald Weasley had mocked him, first, then his disgusting rat had bitten Goyle's finger, though _that_ hadn't been exactly Ronald's fault. But he was part of the reason the fight broke out. Plus the whole thing seemed to be a family issue anyway, seeing how Ron had badmouthed Malfoy's father ten seconds after meeting him, going as far as lumping him together with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the wizard equivalent of the psychopaths who put dead women in plastic bags and considered murder to be a recreational sport. The stuff of nightmares.

Therefore, Hermione wasn't certain what came over her when Draco said those words. Maybe she felt she could relate to bewildered, muggle-raised Harry Potter. Maybe it was the fact that she'd said goodbye to her father and brother earlier that day and that hadn't exactly been fun. Maybe it was because she hadn't slept very well the night before, being a knot of nervous energy. Or perhaps it was because _this_ boy had not been polite once since she'd met him, rattling out tactless barbs about people less well-off than his supposedly illustrious relatives, and then having the nerve to be rude to a perfect stranger who did nothing but help look for a frog, repair some glasses, have a chat.

But, for whatever reason, it came over her and so she turned to Draco and said, "Are you more bothered by the fact that Harry Potter didn't want to be your friend, or the fact he implied your family was somehow lesser than the Weasleys'? Oh, no, you must be more bothered by the fact that you're bothered, right? Potter doesn't like you, doesn't want to be your friend, and you can't bully your way out of this."

Draco's cheeks tinged with pink. It didn't look good on him but and this had very little to do with his looks and everything to do with the fact he was a genuinely unpleasant boy. His fist tightened around his fork and pieces of potatoes fell back onto his plate, and a little bit outside of it.

"You're spilling food."

Blaise let out a snicker, but Hermione wasn't trying to be funny. She hated when people wasted food for no reason.

Draco Malfoy threw his fork on his plate, splashing cottage pie everywhere near it, and proving just how much of a spoiled, immature brat he really was.

"How old are you, five? _Stop wasting food!_ "

"What if I don't? What are you going to do, you idio—"

"Oi, first-years," someone called from down the table, "shut up. Headmaster's trying to speak."

It was then that Hermione noticed that the Hall was silent but for their table. She reddened, threw a furious glare at Malfoy, then looked over the front where Professor Dumbledore had got to his feet again.

"Thank you, Miss Ichijo. As I was saying, anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch. And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death. And now, let us sing the school song!"

"Was that a threat?" Pansy Parkinson asked loudly as the whole school started singing in an atrocious mismatch of voices. "What's on the third-floor corridor?"

"No idea," a third-year cheerfully replied. "But it's intriguing, though, isn't it?"

Hermione was still trying to process this ominous warning when the song ended and there was a great clattering and banging all around them as students stood up ready to leave.

"Oi," said the same voice from earlier. "Fifth-year prefects here."

An older girl stood next to the table. She had a thin figure, Asian features and looked bored to the point of anticipating suicide. A lively bloke with unnatural-looking grey hair accompanied her, he looked overexcited and his eyes were very bright.

"We're supposed to show you where to go—"

The boy apparently couldn't contain himself any longer because he cut her off. "Hello!" he cried. "My name is Cameron Boyle! And this is Manami Ichijo, _welcome to Slytherin House!_ "

Some of the nearby Ravenclaw students whipped around to look at the commotion. Manami Ichijo let out a long sigh and many Slytherins sent her pitying looks.

"We will now show you your dormitories," Cameron Boyle went on happily. "Please come with us!"

"Seems like they're all used to that weirdo," Blaise commented as they stood to follow the prefects. "If I were that girl I'd grab a fork and stab myself."

"I'd rather stab _him,_ in the neck," said Hermione. She had read enough books to know that a hard jab in the neck would send blood flying everywhere. At Blaise's look of disbelief, she explained, "That's where the jugular is."

"I don't mind helping," Theodore Nott muttered as he walked past them.

Blaise mimicked getting goosebumps, rubbing his hands all over his arms. "Ooh, but we're all dangerous round here, aren't we?" he mocked as they all marched out of the hall. "I got to watch my words around you."

Hermione chose to ignore him, preferring dignity to violence.

". . .Our common room's the only one to be located under the lake," Cameron Boyle was explaining in a proud voice to the other first-years upfront; he seemed to be reciting a memorized speech. They'd left the ground floor to take the dungeon passages and were walking in a long corridor made of cold stone walls lit by green-flamed torches. "There's about about twenty ghosts in the castle, and a poltergeist, called Peeves. Each house has its own ghost—Gryffindor's is Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, aka Nearly Headless Nick. The Grey Lady for Ravenclaw and the Fat Friar for the Hufflepuffs. Living with ghosts that glide through doors can get tricky, but Peeves is the _worst._ His favourite game is to run after people screaming his head off. Hey, you lot over there—watch your step, that staircase's always slippery. Well, at least it's straightforward. Stairs at Hogwarts are not, usually. There's more than a hundred of them, and all different. Wide ones, narrow ones, some with vanishing steps and others that lead somewhere different on a Friday. . . Not helpful when you're trying to stick to a timetable. Doors aren't better. Some won't open unless you ask, or you've got to tickle them—some aren't _even_ doors." Cameron paused, and looked toward Manami Ichijo, who had been quite content to let him do all the talking.

"Yeah," she said. "And there's some other cool stuff."

He kept waiting with a hopefully eager look, and she added, "There are also toilets—there and there—if you gotta take a piss—"

"And this is our own House ghost! Good evening Mr Bloody Baron!" Cameron cried and Hermione's head shot where a semi-transparent terrifying man glided without a sound. He was covered with bloodstains, and a few girls gasped, but Malfoy actually let out a deafening high shriek.

Cameron only beamed. "Now, no need for that. He's not that bad. Actually, if you get on his good side he'll agree to frighten people for you. Just don't ask him how he got bloodstained. He doesn't like it. Anyway! Here we are!"

Blaise was still snickering as they entered the Slytherin common room, a long, low-ceilinged, dungeon-like room filled with skulls and the like. There were high-backed chairs, and a carved mantlepiece on the fireplace, and the walls were made of rough, thick stone. It wasn't cold though, and Hermione suspected powerful spells maintaining the place cozy and warm. The light was densely green from the hanging lamps and reflected the waxy medieval tapestries and the hues of the lake from the windows. Two black staircases led up to the dormitories, and Cameron directed the boys to theirs while Manami showed the girls through the other. There they found five four-posters with green silk hangings, and bedspreads embroidered with silver thread. Their trunks had already been brought up.

"I'm taking this bed," Pansy Parkinson declared impetuously, as if daring any of the other four girls to say she couldn't.

Hermione said nothing and claimed one of the two beds near the window, the left one, closest to the door—you never knew when you had to make a quick exit. She went on to open her trunk to put her things in the huge closet beside, when Tracey Davis dropped her own luggage on the bed next to hers. She was a sheepish girl with auburn hair, straight and limp, a heart-shaped face, and freckles, plenty of freckles all over her snub nose and cheeks.

"Pardon me, I'm here," said Daphne. She'd walked to the other side of the bed, at least five long minutes after the other girl'd claimed it.

"It's mine," Tracey protested and even Pansy was watching the confrontation with interest.

"It's the only one next to the window," said Daphne distractedly. "I'm taking it."

"But I was the fi—"

"I said I'm taking this bed. You really ought to learn your place when in the presence of your betters, Davis, I mean, that's a _muggle_ name, isn't it?"

Pansy giggled loudly at that and even Millicent cracked a smile, while Tracey recoiled, eyes widening as though she had been slapped across the face. Hermione blinked, wondering what she would do now.

She did nothing. Gathered her things and, red-faced, went to the last bed that no one wanted, the one next to the bathroom door.

It reminded Hermione of something her godmother had told her some months back. Ariel had taken them to a popular, if small, family restaurant in the wizarding village of Bourges. The waitress, a wiry-thin witch, served them juicy steaks before going to another table. At her departure, Ariel had said to the twins, "That's Daisy, I like her. Shame she is such a coward. She let her sister seduce her boyfriend under her nose and marry him. Now they live in a villa in Spain, while Daisy's thirty, a single mum of a little boy, and playing waitress for a few sickles. See what happens to cowards? They lose."

Lucas's eyes were wide with shock. Hermione too was shocked. "How could her sister. . .?" She had no words.

Ariel shrugged. "Some people just are back-stabbing bitches and that's all. Point is, she didn't fight back, let them get away, hell, the guy's not even paying child support?"

"That's just terrible."

Then Lucas's eyes widened even more. "Are you both serious?" he'd snapped. "That's not being a coward! This lady is working hard for her family, it's not her fault that her boyfriend chea—"

Ariel cut him off. "Simmer down. I'm not saying she's a bad person. Or that her boyfriend is not a bad person. He's trash, and I like to think the gods will deal with him at some point. You know that golden rule, treat others as you would want them to treat you? The thing is, the way _you_ treat _yourself_ is also the way others will treat you. And if you don't respect yourself, why should anyone else?"

Hermione turned to Daphne. "Davis may be a coward on the outside," she said, "but bullies are cowards on the inside. You know, when people don't like themselves very much, well they have to make up for it." Then, she dashed to the bathroom, leaving a speechless witch behind her.


	9. 9

**_9_**

Close on to two hundred students shared the Slytherin dungeons, but the ones who stood out the most to Hermione were the seventh-years prefects. Gemma Farley, a tall, tanned athlete of a girl who was also Hogwarts's Head Girl, and Alex Sykes, a frail-looking bloke with black-frame glasses. They welcomed the first-years by giving them a talking-to on their very first evening in the common room.

"You might have heard rumours about us, that we're all into the Dark Arts, and will only talk to you if your great-grandfather was a famous wizard, and rubbish like that," Alex'd said. "You don't want to believe everything you hear from competing houses. We're really like snakes; sleek, powerful—and misunderstood. Well, I'm not denying we like to take students who come from noble lines of witches and wizards, but nowadays you'll find plenty of people in our house who have one Muggle parent. And you know what? It can be useful, having a reputation for walking on the dark side. Tell people that you've got access to a whole library of dark curses, and see whether anyone feels like annoying you."

Gemma had added that Slytherins were a family who looked out for one another. "As far as we're concerned, once you've become a snake, you're one of ours, one of the elite," she had declared. "Because you know what Salazar Slytherin looked for in his chosen students? The seeds of _greatness."_

Hermione had been flattered to hear she'd been chosen because she had the potential to be great, in the true sense of the word. But then again, like had said Pansy, "A bit hard to believe since Crabbe and Goyle are in our house. I don't reckon they're destined for anything special."

Another thing, Hermione had somehow collected an odd assortment of acquaintances.

It wasn't that she minded—actually, she rather enjoyed it—but she'd feel better if she had any clue how it happened. She'd just woken up on Friday morning and realized that she'd spent nearly every day of the week with Daphne Greengrass and Pansy Parkinson and the usual crowd they hung out with. The other first-years were never far—Blaise, that went without saying. Nott, because he was mysteriously friendly with Daphne. Malfoy who couldn't be kept away. Crabbe and Goyle because they followed him everywhere. Terence Higgs because Pansy had demanded an introduction, and then bonded with him over sports. The Carrow sisters of the year above. The prefects, occasionally, since they were always looking out for first-years getting lost in the castle. The Head Girl was kind of a joke, because Pansy was convinced that jealous enemies from the other houses were lurking in the shadows waiting to take her out. So Gemma couldn't just hang out with them. She had to be in _disguise._ These disguises almost always involved round glasses, and the Slytherin crowd reckoned that was because Pansy found round glasses ridiculous.

They also mingled with non-Slytherin people. Sometimes Hermione wasn't sure if they even liked each other. Her classmates were willing to put up with anyone they'd interacted with before Hogwarts. Like Hannah Abbott and Ernie Macmillan from Hufflepuff. The Patil twins, who were terrifying in combination with Lavender Brown. Morag MacDougal from Ravenclaw. There was this ghost who sometimes floated by with the Bloody Baron, chatted with Daphne, and then wandered off again. There were the orchestra guys. There was a Scottish fourth-year who apparently came from Kirkwall.

"You see how confusing it gets," Daphne had commented. "None of us have held still together for this long before. We all live so far apart. Now that we're gathered all at once like this—it's quite mad, isn't it?"

It was quite mad. But exciting. Sometimes confusing.

"How's your mother doing?" Parvati Patil asked Pansy as they were getting out of their first Potions lesson with the Gryffindors.

"She's fine, why do you ask?"

"Mum's asking."

"Not asking about mine, is she?" Daphne lashed out. She sounded hateful. Unlike herself.

Parvati Patil looked guilty for a second. "I don't know."

"Don't bug Parvati," Lavender Brown said with a sour expression. "She didn't do anything. It's grown-up stuff."

Parvati quickly walked ahead, joining the rest of the Gryffindors. Lavender gave Daphne and Pansy a _you big bullies_ look before following suit.

 _This_ was confusing to Hermione. She had to work backwards through rumours to get a clue of what people were talking about. It did help that most of her new friends were purebloods. While it was true that people who didn't work for a living had way too much time on their hands, at least their interests didn't change that much from one country to another. Now Daphne and Pansy were discussing whether rubies or emeralds were more appropriate for young witches to wear. Maybe they were planning on asking their parents for some.

Why not? The rich tossed away money on childish whims, and Hermione, someday, would be expected to marry a townhouse in Paris, a chateau in the country, and a suitable accumulation of jewellery. And, presumably, the wizard that came with it all, although that seemed, from what she understood, to be less important.

 _I am an explorer,_ Hermione thought, _an explorer surveying the customs of an exotic tribe._

"Well done, Potter," a gleeful voice called as they climbed the steps out of the dungeon. "That was some performance you gave. I knew you had more to you than just the dull-eyed and slimy poser you are."

You didn't need to be an expert in the wizarding world to see through Draco Malfoy. He kind of reminded Hermione of Kayss Beaumont, on Kayss's very worst day. She glared at him, but couldn't muster the energy to maintain the outrage for long, not with the class they just had. Okay, so classes at Hogwarts were bound to be bizarre, since it was a magic school and all—she hadn't known just _how_ bizarre. History of Magic was taught by a ghost, Professor Flitwick was an eccentric dwarf, and the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher a stuttering fool. Today they had Professor Snape, for the first time. Older students had told them about his singular teaching-style so Hermione hadn't gone into the dungeon with a lot of hope, which turned out to be wise. Snape took his famed meanness to a whole new level with Harry Potter. He started with singling out their 'new celebrity' by asking him ridiculously advanced questions—to which Hermione could've answered, of course, but she was the exception since no one in their year read the material beforehand. It didn't stop Professor Snape from ignoring her raised hand and taking points off Harry. Worst was when scatterbrained Neville Longbottom managed to melt his cauldron into a blob and Snape went on blaming Harry for it—they hadn't even been paired off together!

However, to Hermione's admiration, Harry showed true strength of character and didn't talk back or storm out, even when treated _so_ unfairly. Yes, strength. Because it was one thing for Daphne and Pansy to be nasty toward people like Tracey Davis, or even Draco to Ron Weasley. They were all the same age—but Snape was an adult and a _teacher._ He should be the one they went to when confronted to a problem. He should help them. Obviously that wasn't the case. And he seemed to hate Harry _Potter—why?_ Hermione was dying to know. She had a bit of a soft spot for Harry, ever since the instant she'd spotted him in the train with his Sellotaped glasses and befuddled expression.

Friday didn't get any better, with the Slytherin girls refusing—once again—to come study in the library, Blaise disappearing who-knows-where, and Hermione ending up all alone in the common room, embarking on the notoriously long process of finding a good seat to practice transfiguring matches into needles. They had had transfiguration the day before with Professor McGonagall giving them tons of homework, and Hermione had been simultaneously pleased and worried to learn that they'd have her as a teacher. She liked Minerva McGonagall, but she also feared and respected her. The woman gave off an Ariel Ehrenfels vibe, only older—and it was nice—familiarity in the midst of all this madness.

Before starting wizard school, Hermione also had no idea just how tedious sharing her space with other kids was going to be.

Well, you wouldn't, would you? You'd think you'd be part of a study team in some thrilling, busy classroom, arguing the toss over which of this week's world-shattering lesson was the best, sprinting around wearing those glittery wizard hats patterned with stars and moons and screaming 'I'm out of parchment!' every five minutes. Or, more accurately, as she was really secretly hoping to be in Gryffindor, you'd think you'd be staggering in at noon, bone-tired from the day's thrilling adventures in the woods, smelling of patchouli and pumpkin spice, lips stained dark red from eating wild berries and laughing so loudly with your friends that other students stared at you.

Being a first-year Slytherin in Hogwarts consisted of none of those things. There was no study team; there were no star hats; there were no outgoing friends and there were definitely no grand exploits. Learning magic outside the classroom itself was no more than Hermione and Ernie Macmillan, slumped at graffiti-covered tables in the unloveliest corner of an empty library. Toilets to the right, Divination Section to the left, and a bank of bins blocking them from the view of all the proper subjects and older students who worked this early in the year. Though in Hermione's opinion, calling them 'proper' subjects and 'students' was being a bit generous. The Gryffindor seventh-years consisted of interchangeable rowdy lads who seemed to have fallen into the castle by accident. They chucked enchanted balls of paper at each other a lot, sniggered about Madam Pince, and awaited the upcoming trips to the neighbouring village with impatience. The Hufflepuff group was a more professional outfit, and there were only two Ravenclaws; Robert Hilliard and Ophelia Rushden, both prefects. Astonishingly, Slytherins were no regulars. They drifted in and out of sections, silently chose books, and went back to where they came from.

The reason why Hermione spent so much time observing who visited the library was simply because she was astonished by this general attitude toward schoolwork.

Why did Hogwarts students never want to study? They were learning _magic,_ for Merlin's sake! Did they know how lucky they were to be here? Or did they just take it all for granted? While muggles everywhere had to try to remember various parts of cells and struggle through maths, these tossers were discovering how to make things float, brewing potions and bloody teleporting. But what did they do instead of being grateful and diligently doing their homework?

They _complained_ about it. Incessantly! And went on doing basically anything that wasn't school-related. Playing with friends, going to the Gobstones Club, wandering the sunny grounds, playing Quidditch or knitting, mocking the rare students who actually wanted to get good grades, labelling them as know-it-alls...

Hermione had known all her life that other people weren't like her, and that they could be unkind and unsympathetic purely because they didn't like that she wasn't like them—but she never thought she'd feel out of place in Hogwarts. It was jarring, even if, in her opinion, there was no express reason to make new friends; she liked the ones she had. And probably, she'll grow on her classmates, just like back in France. A couple of derisive glances from some girls sitting in high carved chairs, however, were sufficient to persuade her that this might be an overly optimistic view. Very Lucas-ish of her. If he were here, he'd laugh at her for getting so worked up over 'British losers'. The more she thought about him, the more she realized that she shouldn't care. She wasn't doing anything wrong, not breaking a law, not bothering anyone. Her father would be proud of her diligence, actually, and the very minute the teachers gave them the exam schedule, she was making a revision timetable.

And just to save valuable time, why didn't she make a start on that now? She pulled out a notebook from her bag as she headed to an empty chair set back from the fireplace, turned to a fresh page and started drafting it. Or at least, she planned on until she saw the paper pinned up on the noticeboard saying that first-years would be having flying lessons on Thursday along with Gryffindor House—and came to a full stop.

Hermione didn't know how to fly. She'd never even tried. She didn't want to try. Brooms scared her. They did this because Rosalind, her grandma-who-wasn't-really-her-grandma, used to beat her up with one. They did this because they _were_ scary. Imagine sitting alone on a thin stick in the air, many meters above the ground. Now imagine the stick being very unstable, and that if you did one movement wrong, or lost your balance, you might fall off, hit the ground under you and possibly injure yourself very badly and die and all sorts of stuff that was scary.

As these thoughts tumbled through her head, Draco Malfoy appeared, moving her way, and in a drawling tone, asked, "What is this? Flying lessons on Thursday... with the _Gryffindors?_ " He sounded overjoyed. Flying was the one skill at which he was confident he would outshine all the other first-years. To hear him say it, he was fast enough to create tides on the Black Lake if he flew past it too quickly. "This is _brilliant."_

"All right," Hermione muttered irritably. "Calm down, we're not all massive fans of broomsticks. Does your family own a Quidditch team somewhere or something?"

"You're a witch, you can't possibly understand. Girls are more concerned with dresses and the like, how to get shiny hair, and where to get Harry Potter's autograph."

"Careful, Malfoy. Your jealousy is showing."

"Jealous? _Me?_ I know it's near impossible for you, but don't be ridiculous."

"You do have to admit Harry is unquestionably the most talked-about and admired person at school."

Her classmate shot her an irritated look that clearly asked, 'Where is this going?'

"This would naturally anger somebody like you," Hermione went on delicately. "I mean, it's like a slur on your family name. Must be why you're always bullying the Gryffindors. Especially Potter and Weasley. Jealousy."

The 'Where is this going?' faded into 'Are you out of your mind?'

"Look, I'm not trying to be rude, but you must—"

Draco Malfoy was posh enough to disregard pesky things like manners. "Shut up, Bourbon. You don't know anything about my life, so keep your nose out of it if you know what's good for you."

Pompous git. Pompous, arrogant, ignorant git. Hermione had read all about his family in _Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy_. "I also got wizarding blood going back centuries," she said sourly, "but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the values Gryffindor stand for. Anyway, I'm not asking you to become best friends with them, but couldn't you at least leave them alone? You're pushing your luck, what if you get caught by a professor and lose us points, as your housemate I—"

"Have no right to tell me what I can or cannot do," Draco snapped. "You're not my mother. Actually, you're a nobody, so shut up."

"You know what? Fine, I don't care!" Hermione exploded. "God, I don't even know why _you_ of all people had to be in this school, in _my_ house, even poor Harry would have made a much better addition to Slytherin. Who knows, we could have been friends!"

Something nasty flashed in Draco's grey eyes. "Don't you grow bored of your own voice, Bourbon? Stop living in your little fantasy world. You weren't going to be anyone's friend. The only way Potter's ever going to talk to you is if you do his homework for him. Because you're a lousy, lousy witch. A good student, I'll grant you that. That big brain of yours has had teachers hooked from the start. But you're annoying. No one in their right mind is going to be interested in you. Merlin," he snorted, "haven't you ever even realized Parkinson and Greengrass don't actually like you? Zabini let them know you lived in some big French castle, so they'd accept being seen with a teacher's pet. If that wasn't the case, they wouldn't come near you with a ten-foot broomstick!"

Hermione felt something loosen in her, that shouldn't have loosened. "Shut up, swear, Malfoy, swear on my parents' graves, that if you don't _shut up_ —" She broke off. Partly because she was so upset she was _shaking._ And partly because someone had just come into the common room.

An expectant hush fell over just as the secret stone door closed back behind an unusually short boy. Black hair ruthlessly buzz cut against his scalp, purple circles under his eyes, shiny prefect badge. Visibly deranged. Meet Niles Hanley, sixth-year prefect.

Draco took this opportunity to flee, pivoting on his heels and sprinting up the stairs to the dormitories.

Hermione was about to do the same when she was asked, "Hey, you there. Whats-your-name, Bourgon? Nah, Bourbon? What was all that about?"

"I reckon that's none of your business."

Niles Hanley didn't respond. What he did was stare expressionlessly at her for a long, worrying moment in a way that immediately got her talking. When she was done explaining what had just transpired, he asked, "Why didn't you tell somebody instead of telling him off yourself? That's what we're for."

Hermione startled. It had occurred to her, but it seemed like a situation she could deal with herself. "I don't know."

"You shouldn't take the law into your own hands," Niles counselled. "That way it'll be you who ends up in trouble."

She listened because she respected him, but what he was saying didn't sound right. If you didn't have a choice, if you wanted to get things done, you did have to take the law into your own hands. If you were hungry and no one would feed you, then you had to steal food from the fridge at night; that was how real life worked. If someone got locked in you did your best to get them out. If you wanted someone to stop doing something, you had to make them.

Niles was staring at her curiously. "You've had quite a stressful week, haven't you? All the running around..."

"Well, our first Potions class was certainly an experience."

"Ah! You met Snape!' His face cleared, like a little boy who suddenly understood his algebra. "No wonder you're feeling a bit out of sorts. You work yourself too hard. Gemma was telling me about it, you're that girl who gets up at seven to study every morning, aren't you?"

"I do like to knock out a couple of chapters before breakfast," Hermione admitted.

The prefect pushed her toward the stairs. "Go to bed, Bourbon. And can you take the afternoon off work at all? Tell you what, I'll talk to Malfoy—boys can be such little shits at that age—don't worry."

"I don't think—"

"Just go along with it. I've been looking for a chance to destroy this kid."

Hermione went along with it. Good to have some of the crazy people on her side, for a change. There was a smile on her face as she mounted the first steps of the polished black stairs curving upward.

"A new addition to the goon squad?"

Hermione turned round. She found herself looking down at a head of hair, so black it shone blue under the greenish candlelights. Theodore Nott stood at the foot of the staircase, so quiet and unobtrusive, she'd walked past without even noticing him. Until he talked. Despite the fact they were classmates, it was the longest thing he had ever addressed to her. She didn't count the time he said, 'Mind lending me a quill?' in Herbology.

"Pardon?"

"Malfoy," he said, lethargically. "Seems like you're close friends. Are you telling me you like Crabbe and Goyle too?"

Hermione wasn't sure she liked his tone. "Not close friends," she said stiffly. "Not any kind of a friend, in fact. Just an acquaintance."

"Right. Didn't mean to offend. Your conversation sounded interesting."

"Why, what did you hear?"

There was a sudden racket downstairs, which turned out to be a gang of girls falling about with hilarity, standing back up, and collapsing into giggles again. Now that's what a Friday evening was meant to be like. Just a bunch of friends having fun. How come Hermione was stuck talking to this awkward dullard? She winced at the thought. That was not nice of her. After all she had always hated those people who spent parties looking over their shoulder for someone more interesting to talk to. And she was not about to start losing her manners just because this idiot Malfoy got her upset. Besides, Nott might be a little on the reserved side, but he was far from repulsive, and Blaise liked him. "And," she went on more politely, "where are you going?"

Theodore blinked, then shrugged. "I've asked myself the same question. Sitting back home watching water boil would've been a better use of a day."

Hermione stared at him. "But... we're at a boarding school!'

He stared back. "So?"

"Well, there's free food, and amazing books... and all these different people..."

His mouth gave a twitch. "You can find that anywhere. And I have nothing to say to a single one of these people. But I see your point. The castle is better than home in many other ways." It seemed to be a long speech for him and he stopped abruptly, as if he had used up his quota of words for the day.

As Hermione watched him disappear in the passage, she realized he hadn't really answered any of her questions at all.

Next morning at breakfast, it looked safe enough for her to go sit with her classmates. No one was showing any signs of hating her with unspeakable passion. Pansy was busy talking Blaise's ear off, and Malfoy was sipping his pumpkin juice, looking slightly less arrogant than usual. He even pulled her chair out for her to sit down. Well, he kicked it out for her to sit down. But it was an improvement. Hanley must have had words with him.

"Hermione," said Blaise, shoving a chunk of bread across the table to her, "you have to taste this."

"What is it?"

"Rolls."

"But I don't like rolls."

"You'll like these rolls."

Hermione chewed off part of it. Blaise was right. When it came to food, Blaise was always right. His knowledge was vast, his taste flawless. "Did you get through all of your Transfiguration homework?" he asked. "I've been working on that formula McGonagall gave us for ages. The variables of wand power and concentration, I could understand, but that part about bodyweight has been driving me crazy."

"The overall mass and size of the object to be transfigured?"

"Yeah, I don't see what that's got to do with anything."

Hermione was explaining that weight had to be taken into account because it was proportional to the difficulty of the spell and skill of the wizard when she was interrupted by the arrival of the post. To her pleasure, no less than three owls soared down, circled the long table and dropped letters on to her lap. Malfoy and she were the only first-years who received packages every day. A screech owl brought her the latest issue of _Magie d'Aujourd'hui_ —the world-famous French newspaper—then it was Lucas's owl's turn, and they had hardly fluttered out of the way that one of the school birds dropped a letter on top of the table.

What? Who would be writing to her from school? She ripped it open, frowning. It said,

 _Miss Bourbon,_  
 _I am sorry to hear about your medical condition that makes it impossible for you to ride a broom. You are thereby exempt from Thursday's flying lesson._

 _R. Hooch_

Hermione had difficulty hiding her bewilderment as she handed the note to Blaise to read. This particular problem had been bugging the hell out of her head all weekend and it was solved just like that, out of nowhere?

"You can thank your dad for that one," Blaise said offhandedly when he was done reading. "Have you been crying your nerdy little heart out to him?"

Hermione had in fact complained to her father in her last letter—but she had never thought he would _act_ on her blathering. "What the heck? It wasn't that serious. Why would he take the trouble to—?"

Blaise got serious, in that mock-serious way he had where you never knew if he was clowning or not. "Of course he's going to take it seriously, he loves you more than anyone could love anything in the world. You can tell that in thirty seconds."

"A little melodramatic, don't you think?" Hermione said, weighing the benefits of spending Thursday afternoon studying against the drawbacks of having to miss out on British wizard experience. Sadly, she had plans for her school path—like being the best student to ever grace the corridors of Hogwarts—so the study-afternoon won. She surmised that as a man of science, her father must have understood that getting his progeny out of this ridiculously dangerous class was essential. Basic biology, wasn't it? Didn't each species do whatever it could to survive? Well, he probably wasn't going to stick around and see what happened to the Bourbon species when they put his daughter on a deadly stick of death.

Pansy leaned over. "Are you skipping flying lessons? You can't do that. That's against your _morals_ or something."

Hermione folded the note and stuffed it in her pocket. She did feel guilty. But not as bad as she would have felt if she had to touch a broomstick. "It's not skipping, and even if it were I can give you a bunch of good reasons why I have no other choice. The alternative being that I would be stuck in a horrifying, deadly class, with rubbish security, rubbish gear, and at the end nothing for my father to boast to his friends about. I'm doing everyone a favour, really. And _why_ do we have to take flying classes in the first place? Frankly, safety provision at Hogwarts is unacceptable. The main sport played by the school, to name one example, is incredibly dangerous and should be reviewed by the Ministry's Department of Magical Education immediately."

That cracked Pansy up. Things that she found funny were highly unpredictable. "GREENGRASS," she yelled, "you've GOT to listen to this."

Daphne, who kept a bit apart from them, stopped playing with the tip of her cashmere scarf. "I beg your pardon?" Beside her, Theodore Nott just sat there, saying nothing, swinging his hair left and right to crack his neck. They made a good couple—a silent, poker-faced couple.

"Don't you laugh at me, Pansy."

"She tells me the funniest stuff I've heard all year, and then she says don't laugh. This is _aweso—"_

"Shut up, Sissy," cut in a voice from the other end of the table. Chairs were scraping against the floor as a bunch of giant blokes stood and the biggest of them all started Terminator-marching toward them. He was rugged-featured, with black stubble and a heavy brow over deep-set eyes. "Stop being so fucking loud, first thing in the morning," he said when he was close enough to loom over them.

With a squeal, Pansy stood and threw herself at him in a tackle-hug, utterly unmoved by the fact that fifth-years and above were the scariest thing ever. "Marcus! No 'good morning'? No 'and how did you sleep, pretty witch?' No introduction to your friends?"

'Marcus' grabbed her by the collar and lifted her up, peeling her off him like she was a kitten. Bringing her up to his eye level, he said, "No noogie, no fist in your face. You've been lucky so far. Keep up the bullshit, though, and I might just drop you on your dumb little head."

" _Hey!_ Put me down this instant you troll-faced—"

Hermione grabbed Pansy's dangling foot. "We'll be late to class." That wasn't the case, but she was trying to avoid bloodshed.

Marcus snorted and set Pansy back on her feet. "Try to keep this lunatic out of trouble," he ordered Hermione before stalking back to his big, scary friends. People gave him a wide berth, as if they expected him to draw an axe and come after them.

"Marcus's captain of the Slytherin team," Pansy explained when they were leaving the hall. "He's my cousin on my mother's side."

"...Is he, now."

"I can see it," said Blaise.

"Ugh, he's way too big and annoying, but I guess most wizards are." On the way to the first floor, Pansy launched into a story about how they went to Greece on holiday and her cousin went insane while they were touring museums in Athens. It required a lot of patience, she explained, and Marcus had none. "Our mums told us to sketch these old skeletons of famous dead Greek wizards. Marcus tore up his paper and threw all his pencils on the floor. He's kind of a giant retard and his friends are just... weird, and mentally, they're all three years old. He's always flunking all his classes. They actually put him in some remedial Potions class because he brews like somebody who doesn't understand English."

Hermione whipped back toward her classmate. The proverbial light bulb had just lit up over her head. "Remedial Potions?" she asked avidly. "With Professor Snape?"

"Yup, along with some other retards. They're _that_ bad. Anyway, with any luck you'll never have to talk to them. But I don't know much about Snape."

These menacing blokes who spent hours alone with Snape, on the other hand, probably knew him better than anyone. Assuming they would be willing to help.

"There's something I've been wondering about, something very important," Hermione explained. "I think the seventh-years would know about it. How convenient. I need to ask."

"Right," Pansy said skeptically. "That might be a bad idea." She seemed to think Hermione was all talk and not actually planning to go through with it.

. . .

Marcus Flint sprawled back in a leather armchair near the fireplace, thumbing through a months-old issue of _The Wizard's Friend_ and trying to curb the urge to punch the dickhead sitting next to him in the face for coughing in his general direction. Salazar knew what kind of germs he was spreading.

"Bloody hell," Sebastian called, after he was done polluting the general vicinity and a group of attractive girls had walked into the common room. "Is it just me or did Julia really fill out over the summer?"

"I don't know," Maxwell Berrow said, "but I got dibs on the fit brunette next to her."

"Berrow, did you just come in your pants?"

"Fuck off, Flint."

Sebastian was craning his neck to get a better look at the witches. "Banging, but high maintenance. Sebastian Is Wise And He Knows," he imparted, tapping a finger to his head.

"You're a retard, Daley," Marcus said companionably.

"Whatever. And Berrow," Sebastian hissed, kicking the other sixth-year under the table, "just go and talk to your bird already if you're gonna drool all over your robes."

"I will _later,"_ Maxwell said, kicking him back. His tone changed as he added, "No one's caught your eye, Flint, eh? I can't help but wonder if you've realized how much you've changed lately."

Marcus frowned in confusion. "What? What the bloody hell are you talking about?"

Sebastian crossed his arms, nodding. "No, no. He's quite right." Pointing at the fourth wizard sitting with them, he said,

"Yatty-Baby here—"

"You did not just call me that," Yatin Bhagat said with a sigh. "You did not."

Sebastian, of course, ignored him and went on, "—and I were just saying the other day that you've changed, Marcky—"

"The fuck did you just call me?"

 _"Marcky,"_ Yatin and Maxwell chorused, before bursting into laughter.

"Hilarious," Marcus snarled.

"Will you let me talk!" Once all the attention was once again on Sebastian, he cleared his throat importantly and continued, "So we all think that you've been kind of different lately, compared to, I don't know, last year."

"I am still the definition of tough, okay? The baddest of the bad. Ask anybody."

Maxwell, Sebastian, and Yatin all stared at him without answering.

"All right. Different how?"

Sebastian offered, "You haven't talked about any new witches you've shagged in a while."

"You actually come to class now." This from Yatin.

"When's the last time you went drinking or to a party?" Maxwell.

Marcus racked his brain for the last time he went to a party and got smashed. Images of him eating and staying at home with his family this summer popped up instead. Fucking hell. "What are you sayin'?" he shouted defensively. "It's only the second week of school!"

"Never stopped you before," Sebastian threw back. "You've also dialled down your dickhead levels. Don't get me wrong, you're _still_ a dickhead, but you don't make me want to curl up in a ball and cry now."

Marcus knew why they were saying all this rubbish. He massaged his temples. The problem was that his cousin Pansy was adorable, the same way chihuahuas were adorable—sweet until they bit off your finger and left it bleeding on the ground. She was a pain in the neck, a little pest. But Marcus did not beat up little dogs. Just wasn't this kind of bloke. Similarly, he couldn't beat up his cousin because mate, that was totally against his man-code. Which was why he had to be on his best behavior around the eleven-year-old, he didn't want to scare her, or worse, give her something to use against him at a family function. He'd already threatened to beat the crap out of anyone daring to tell her any stories that floated around about him—what if she filed the information away for blackmail purposes?

He was tempted to act on these threats now that his friends were being their usual stupid selves. Sebastian and Maxwell were the most vocal in attacking him, Yatin just sported a faintly superior smile. Three against one. The whole place looked like some sadistic playpen.

"Shit's going down like it's 1473," Marcus mumbled, then chuckled at himself. The non-Quidditch players at the table all exchanged looks of confusion and he stopped laughing. These were his mates, but they really were idiots sometimes. "Forget it. Anyway, you don't know my little cousin, she's a serial snitch with a split personality. That's why I'm trying to keep a low profile."

Sebastian waved his hand about. "Even if she catches you doing shit, so what? What's the worst she can do?"

"I don't even want to imagine."

Yatin scoffed. "She's a first-year, for fuck's sake. You could scare twenty of these kids to death on a good day. Just tell her to piss off."

"Or buy her something," suggested Maxwell. "What do firsties even like? Chocolate cake? Ice-cream? Ice-cream cake with rainbow sprinkles?"

Marcus despaired at their naiveté. "Mate, you've never seen Pansy after she's had sugar. You don't even know the craziness that small body can hold. She's like my aunt Ivy but tinier and with literally no impulse control. Whatever you're imagining, it's worse."

That amused Maxwell. "Marcus Flint, are you _scared_ of your cousin?"

"Pussy," Yatin coughed in his fist loudly. "Oh excuse me, Flint. Terrible cough I'm developing."

"I'm not scared of _anything,_ let alone a three foot gremlin! Merlin, you know what, just zip it and let me read in peace before I lose patience and my fist ends up in your face."

"Why, what grand book are you reading?" Sebastian asked, squinting at the page. " _Septimus 007: The Mage Spy?_ I'm just not sure it's the right career choice for you, Marcky."

Marcus rolled his eyes and went back his magazine because, mate, spies were like the world's smartest badasses, when another shadow fell over his page. He lifted his eyes to see a little girl standing next to his armchair. Pansy's friend, he'd seen her around. A first-year, dark-haired, with a big leatherbound book under her arm. Her brown eyes had a purposeful look to them, like she were considering the best way to take him down in a fight.

Marcus couldn't read the title of her book. He thought he was too stupid. Then he realized the book wasn't even in English. It was written in another alphabet. Ancient Greek, he reckoned. The odd silver letters seemed to glide across the cover.

The girl was still standing there, just waiting, so he asked, "What are you staring at? I know I'm a stud, but you're pushing it."

"What's a stud?"

Marcus barely checked a snort. He was pretty sure he knew what was a stud at that age. What kind of slobbers did this kid have for parents? Teaching her loser old languages but not basic vocabulary? "Whatever. Get lost." All he intended to say. He'd always thought it wise to avoid entangling himself in a conversation with anyone under fourteen.

The girl had other ideas. "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, about Pansy. If you want my opinion, she doesn't give an owl's hoot about what you do in your spare time—and to be honest, it's a bit arrogant of you to presume so. I mean, don't get me wrong, she'd definitely rat you out to your parents if you get in trouble, but only if she hears it from someone else. Your best shot is to have her hear it from you. I'd go as far as to say she'd feel important to be trusted with your secrets and would help you keep them."

 _Who_ was this kid? A therapist?

But she did have nerve, didn't she? Marcus liked that. He hated people who kissed his ass.

The girl paused and then went on, in a secretive tone, "This is kind of off topic but I noted Professor Snape hates Harry Potter. You know, _the_ Harry Potter—well, obviously you know who Harry Potter is. Anyway, Harry hasn't done anything, to anyone. You wouldn't happen to know why Snape loves bullying him so, would you?"

Maxwell gave a loud snort. "This kid's so full of it," Yatin commented and Sebastian peered at her and said, "You lose your way from the hospital wing or something?"

She ignored them all, still staring up at Marcus impatiently. "At first I thought it was a one-time thing, but then it happened again," she said, utterly serious, and pointed to the cluster of first-years next to the windows. "The others were here, and the Gryffindors too—though I hardly expect you to know any of them. I've been discussing it with Harry, but he hasn't been really cooperative. Then again I'm not very likeable," she added matter-of-factly, "that might be why. Anyway, I doubt he knows anything useful. He grew up with muggles, so, he doesn't know our ways. I could have asked Professor Snape but…" She grimaced a bit. "All right, so I've been dealing with this wizard for weeks now. And he's mean. So mean he probably dreams of killing small children. Twisted in some deep way that probably should involve counselling, six kinds of pharmaceuticals, and a stay in prison."

"Are you for real?" Marcus asked, and she just frowned and nodded like, of course. He nodded back, just once, thinking, _Right, this is going to be hilarious_. Even if this kid was a complete liar or just out of her mind in general, or maybe doing performance art of some kind, he liked that she believed in what she was trying to sell him. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Hermione. Hermione of Bourbon."

The name resonated in Marcus's mind, like he should know it. He always had trouble remembering things. No matter. Pansy knew this girl, so he couldn't kick her ass or something. Besides, he had to admit this whole twisted murdered thing sounded pretty bad. What if Snape went psycho in class and something happened to his defenceless, loudmouthed cousin? Assuming it was true and not some kind of invention. It was weird to think how easy it was to believe this frowning child.

"Come on," he said, "tell me your best guess, then."

"My guess?" the girl said, her brows snapping together.

Marcus smirked, encouraging her to keep the game going. Of course she'd back down after he pushed for more, he figured, because there probably wasn't any. "Yeah," he said. "Snape. Bullying a kid. What's in it for him?"

"That's what I'm asking you," she said, shaking her head in resignation. Marcus thought, _Here it is, mate_. But then she went on, "There could be many reasons, he's what, thirty-five? Meaning he was in Hogwarts in the seventies, so he must have been like twenty-five when the thing with You-Know-Who went down, meaning—"

"Oh," Sebastian was clapping his hands excitedly. "Ooooh, you cant think... You don't possibly think that—"

A defiant and obstinate look came over Hermione Bourbon's face. "Well, it's not completely impossible, is it? He seems so bitter about everything and the dates coincide."

"Could be an isolated incident. You're reading too much into it. It's just Snape being Snape."

"By definition, an isolated incident is _isolated._ You haven't seen it, he really, really hates Harry."

"There must be a reason. It's a small world down here, I can give you the names of at least two kids that my own grown-ass parents would hate on sight, just because of bad relations."

"They've never met before," the girl dismissed. "Given the difference between the two families' geography, occupations, and lifestyle, what are the odds that their only common point is a famous homicidal maniac?"

"Supposing what you say is true," Sebastian continued relentlessly, "how in the world was a convict allowed to teach for all these years? Most of these guys are behind bars or laying low in their manors. And more importantly, what's the endgame? Bloody _killing_ the kid?"

"Very unlikely, given that you're talking about a murder, which, at least in Harry's case, would occur in a castle full of trained teachers. A disorganised idiot might have the impulsiveness for such an attack, and Professor Snape's not an idiot. He would take the time to scout out the risks."

"So what, the bullying is part of some elaborate methodical plan?"

They started talking really fast about murder plans and wizarding wars but in Marcus's mind, they might as well be discussing the floo network in third world countries. "Mind explaining to the rest of us what the hell you're talking about?"

"Shut up, Marcus," Sebastian said irritably before turning back to the first-year. "Look, taking down somebody far-famed, under the nose of Dumbledore, just out of revenge, in a span of a year—long shot. That kind of bloodlust toward one kid, combined with such high-level control..." His voice trailed off. "I can't picture it. It doesn't fit."

"But a full grown man randomly deciding to make a child's life hell, going out of his way to do so, said child just happening to be _Harry Potter_ —that makes sense?"

"Coincidences happen."

"It's not a coincidence!"

"Then, what?"

"We need information. I know: we'll ask around. What a great idea! Wish I would have thought of it!"

"Now she's all mad and sarcastic," Sebastian sing-sang. "You're lucky I'm a curious person, I'll help. Well, Marcky will help and I'll help him help!"

"What do you want me to look for?" Marcus asked. Because what the hell, humouring the two lunatics seemed like the safest option here.

Hermione's brown eyes got big as saucers as she ripped a parchment and quickly scribbled on it, muttering, "Obviously family relations... Maybe records, letters? Or pictures? If your parents know anything—"

Marcus snagged the paper. "Fine, whatever," he said. "But if you tell anyone, I'll rip your ears off and staple them to your neck."

Hermione beamed at him. "Oh, thank you so much! I'll leave you alone now. Have a good evening!"

"Yeah." Like it's been amazing so far. "You too."


End file.
